UNIVERSITY 


.A 


/ 


Nf.w  'fork  ,1).  Apple to^  &.  Co 


THE 


LIFE  AND  PUBLIC  SERVICES 


OF 


SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE, 


UNITED  STATES  SENATOR  AND  GOVERNOR  OF  OHIO  ;  SECRETARY  OF  THE 
TREASURY,  AND  CHIEF-JUSTICE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


BY 

J.  W.  SCHUCKEKS. 

i! 


TO   WHICH   IS    ADDED    THE    EULOGY    ON    ME.   CHASE,    DELIVERED 

BY  WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS,  BEFORE  THE  ALUMNI  OF 

DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE,  JUNE  24,  1874. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


NEW  YORK: 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY, 

549   &   551   BROADWAY. 

1874. 


ENTERED,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1874, 
BY  D.  APPLETON  &  COMPANY, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  "Washington. 


TO    MY    FRIEND 


CHARLES    B.  COLLIER,  ESQ., 


PHILADELPHIA. 


te>x 
\ 

(UNIVERSITY) 
^^ 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

PAGE 

Birth  of  Salmon  P.  Chase — Cornish — His  Ancestry — His  Marriages  and  Chil 
dren — Some  Account  of  the  Chase  Family — Childhood      ....      1 


CHAPTER  H. 

Removal  to  Keene — His  Father's  Death — Recollections  of  Keene — At  School 
at  Windsor— Journey  to  Ohio— Niagara  Falls— Cleveland— "  The  Ferry- 
Boy  " — Arrival  at  Worthington .  .7 

CHAPTER  in. 

The  Bishop's  School  at  Worthington — "  Shaving  a  Pig  " — Removal  to  Cincin 
nati — Cincinnati  College — An  Incident — Returns  to  Keene  .  .  .13 


CHAPTER  IV. 

i 

Undertakes  a  School  at  Roxbury,  and  fails— Royalton— Dartmouth  College- 
Successful  as  a  Teacher  at  Reading — Trouble  with  the  Faculty  of  the  Col 
lege — Graduates — Out  in  the  World 18 

CHAPTER  V. 

Frederick  City,  Maryland — On  to  Washington — Advertises  a  Select  Classical 
School— No  Results— Tries  for  a  Clerkship— Mr.  and  Mrs.  Plumley— Mr. 
Plumley  gives  up  his  School — Success — "  The  Sisters  " — Student  in  William 
Wirt's  Office— John  Randolph— William  Wirt— Admission  to  the  Bar- 
Goes  West  .  .  .  '  .  .  .  .22 


CHAPTER  VL 

Begins  Life  as  a  Lawyer  at  Cincinnati — Speculation  in  1836 — The  Lyceum  and 
some  Literary  Work — Eulogy  upon  Brougham — Chase's  Statutes — Com 
mendations  of  Chancellor  Kent  and  Justice  Story  .  .  ; .  .  .32 


viii  CONTEXTS. 

vr 

CHAPTER  VII. 

PAGE 

The  Presidential  Canvass  of  1832 — Anti-Masons — Mr.  Wirt  their  Candidate — 
"  The  Birney  Mob  "— "  The  Philanthropist  "—Mr.  Chase  on  the  Liberty  of 
the  Press— The  Matilda  Case— Norton  S.  Townshend— Trial  of  Mr.  Birney  38 

/    \f 

CHAPTER  Vm.  "' 

Votes  for  Harrison  in  1840 — Views  of  Political  Probabilities — Accession  of 
John  Tyler — Mr.  Chase's  Ideas  respecting  Antislavery  Action — Antislavery/r 
Convention  of  1840 — Organization  of  the  Liberty  Party  in  Ohio  in  1841— /\ 
Its  Address — Mr.  Chase's  Hopes        .        .        .        .        .  .        .45' 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Mr.  Chase  "  Attorney-General  for  Runaway  Negroes  "—The  Case  of  John  Van 
Zandt — Mr.  Chase's  Argument  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States — Its  Conclusion  ,  52 


CHAPTER  X. 

State  Election,  1842— Difficulties  of  the  Liberty  Party  Movement— National 
Convention  of  the  Liberty  Party  at  Buffalo  in  1843 — Southern  and  West 
ern  Liberty  Convention  at  Cincinnati  in  1845 — A  Great  and  Important 
Gathering — The  Case  of  Samuel  Watson .67 

CHAPTER  XL 

Annexation  of  Texas — Buffalo  National  Liberty  Convention  of  1847 — State 
Convention  at  Columbus,  1848 — Democratic  and  Whig  National  Conven 
tions  of  that  Year — Convention  of  Barnburner  Democrats  of  New  York — 
Free-Soil  National  Convention  at  Buffalo  in  August — Nomination  of  Martin 
Van  Buren  and  Charles  Francis  Adams — Platform — General  Results  .  81 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Democratic  Antislavery  in  Ohio  in  1848,  1849,  and  1850 — Composition  of  the 
Ohio  Legislature  in  1848-'49— Whig  Apportionment  of  1847-'48  in  Ham 
ilton  County — Free-Soil  Caucus — Townshend  and  Morse — Action  of  the 
Caucus — The  Morse  and  Townshend  Coalition  with  the  Old-line  Democrats 
—  Election  of  Mr.  Chase  to  the  United  States  Senate  —  Whig  Charges 
of  its  Immorality — What  happened  to  the  Principal  Actors  in  the  Coalition 
— Extracts  from  Letters  of  Mr.  Chase — Verdict  of  the  People  of  Ohio — 
History  of  the  Repeal  of  the  "  Black  Laws  " — Notes  to  Chapter  XII.  .  89 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Mr.  Chase  takes  his  Seat  in  the  Senate — Thirty-first  Congress — Slavery  Agita 
tion — Takes  no  Part  in  Democratic  Caucus — Question  of  Slavery  in  the 
Domain  acquired  from  Mexico — Application  of  California  for  Admission 


CONTENTS.  ix 

PAGB 

idto  the  Union — Proposal  of  Compromise — Senate  Committee  of  Thirteen 
— Report  ot  the  Committee — Extracts  from  Mr.  Chase's  Speech  on  the  Mat 
ters  involved  in  that  Report  .  .......  105 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Bills  submitted  by  the  Senate  Committee  of  Thirteen — Non-intervention  with 
Slavery  in  the  Territories — Jefferson  Davis's  Proposition — Counter-propo 
sition  by  Mr.  Chase — Speech  of  Mr.  Chase  on  the  Subject — The  Texas 
Boundary — Fugitive  Slave  Act  of  1850 — Mr.  Chase's  Opposition  to  it — 
Adoption  of  the  Compromise  of  1860 — "A  Complete  and  Final  Adjust 
ment  " — Mr.  Sumner's  Advent  into  the  Senate — Introduction  by  Mr.  Doug- 
,  las  of  the  Bill  organizing  a  Territorial  Government  in  Nebraska  .  .118 

CHAPTER  XV. 

"  The  Era  of  Slave-hunting  " — Second  Session  of  the  Thirty-second  Congress — 
Meeting  of  the  National  Conventions  of  the  Whig  and  Democratic  Parties 
in  1852 — Their  Declarations  and  Nominations — Mr.  Chase's  Letter  to  B.  F.  \ , 
Butler,  of  New  York — Action  of  the  New  York  Democracy — The  Views  of    • 
Mr.  Chase  touching  that  Action — National  Free-Soil  Convention  at  Pitts- 
burg — Its  Platform — The  Election  of  General  Pierce — Forecast  of  the 
Future       .        .        .        .        .        .        ....        .        .        .        .128 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Meeting  of  the  Thirty-third  Congress  in  December,  1853 — Extract  from  the 
Message  of  President  Pierce — Pledges  himself  in  behalf  of  the  Quiet  and 
Harmony  of  the  Country — Nebraska  Bill  introduced  into  the  Senate  by 
Mr.  Douglas — Extracts  from  the  Report  which  accompanied  the  Bill — Re 
peal  of  the  Missouri  Restriction  proposed  by  Mr.  Dixon,  of  Kentucky — 
Mr.  Sumner's  Counter-proposition  —  Denunciations  by  the  Washington 
Union  of  the  Amendments  of  Senators  Dixon  and  Sumner — "  The  South 
Wind  thick  with  Storm  " — Mr.  Douglas  proposes  the  Repeal  of  the  Mis 
souri  Restriction — Modification  of  the  Alleged  Ground  of  Repeal — The  Ad 
ministration  pledges  itself  to  the  Principle  of  "Non-intervention"  em 
bodied  in  the  Nebraska  Bill  .  .  .  .  .  ':  .  .  .134 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

The  Appeal  of  the  Independent  Democrats — Effect  of  the  Appeal  upon  the 
Public  Sentiment  of  the  North .  .  .  .  ,*  .  .  '  .  .140 

4t 
CHAPTER  XVni. 

Mr.  Douglas  denounces  the  Appeal  of  the  Independent  Democrats — Defends 
the  "  Principle  "  of  his  Nebraska  Bill — And  alleges  that  the  Legislation  of 
1850  superseded  the  Missouri  Restriction — Mr.  Chase  denies  the  Doctrine 
of  Supersedure— His  Speech— Action  of  the  Senate  on  the  Question  of  Su- 


x  CONTENTS. 

PAQB 

persedure — Mr.  Chase  seeks  to  discover,  by  Important  Amendments,  the 
Real  Principle  of  the  Bill — Its  Real  Principle  developed — The  Agitation 
in  the  North — Passage  of  the  Bill — Anecdote  of  Mr.  Chase  .  .  .149 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Party  Action  in  relation  to  the  Nebraska  Bill — Difficulty  of  obtaining  Signatures 
to  the  Appeal  of  the  Independent  Democrats — Attempt  to  change  the  Cur 
rent  of  Public  Sentiment  through  Know-Nothingism — Failure  of  that  At 
tempt — Mr.  Chase  retires  from  the  Senate — The  Struggle  in  Kansas — Brief 
Account  of  the  Earlier  Events  in  that  Struggle — State  of  Parties  in  Ohio — 
Organization  of  the  Republican  Party — Nomination  of  Mr.  Chase  for  Gov 
ernor — His  Speech  of  Acceptance — Canvass  of  the  State,  and  his  Election  160 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Mr.  Chase  as  Governor — Education — The  Margaret  Garner  Tragedy — Letter  of 

Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Trowbridge,  giving  a  History  of  that  Case       .        .         .170 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

The  Conservatism  of  Mr.  Ch'ase — "  The  Greene  County  Slave-hunt  "—Action  of 
the  U.  S.  District  Judge  for  the  Southern  District  of  Ohio — Action  of  the  State 
Courts — Slave-shooting  on  Kane's  Creek — Public  Meetings  hi  Ohio — Con 
flict  of  Federal  and  State  Process — The  Great  Railway  Celebration  of  1857 
— Remarks  of  Governor  Chase  at  Baltimore — Colonel  Carrington's  Mission 
and  Interview  with  Secretary  of  State  Cass — Interview  of  Governor  Chase 
with  Mr.  Buchanan  and  General  Cass  .  ..  .  .  .  .177 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

Reorganization  of  the  Military  System  of  Ohio — Convention  of  Military  Officers 
— Extract  from  Colonel  Parsons's  Report  on  the  Military  System — Growing 
Importance  of  the  New  Organization — Its  Efficacy  and  Usefulness  in  a  Per 
ilous  Conjuncture — "  The  Breslin  Defalcation  " — Gibson's  Concealment  of 
it — Prompt  Action  of  Governor  Chase — Nominated  for  Reelection — Diffi 
culties  of  the  Canvass — His  Great  Labors  in  conducting  it — Second  Inau 
gural  Address — A  Model  Paper — John  Brown's  Raid  into  Virginia — Gov 
ernor  Wise  fears  an  Invasion  from  Ohio — His  Letter  to  Governor  Chase — 
Governor  Chase's  Characteristic  Reply — Extract  from  his  Last  Annual  Mes- 
gage — Reflected  to  United  States  Senate  .  ...  .  .  .183 

CHAPTER  XXni. 

Presidential  Canvass  of  1856,  and  in  1860 — Want  of  Influence  of  Ohio  Delega 
tion  in  Chicago  Convention — Election  of  Mr.  Lincoln — Withdrawal  of  South 
Carolina  from  the  Union — Letter  of  Mr.  Chase  to  Randall  Hunt — Goes  to 
Springfield  by  Invitation  of  Mr.  Lincoln — Interviews  with  Mr.  Lincoln — 
Conditional  Offer  of  Treasury  Department — Letter  to  Governor  Seward — 


CONTENTS.  xi 

PAGE 

Peace  Conference  called  by  Legislature  of  Virginia — Mr.  Chase  attends  as  a 
Delegate  from  Ohio — Speech  in  the  Conference — The  Conference  a  Failure 
— Appointment  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury — Resigns  his  Senatorship  .  195 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Enters  upon  his  Duties  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury — Depressed  State  of  the 
Finances  at  that  Time — His  Early  Financial  Measures — Beginning  of  the 
Rebellion — Extra  Session  of  Congress,  July,  1861  .  .  .  .  .209 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Estimates  for  Fiscal  Year  1862 — Proposed  Increase  of  Duties  on  Teas,  Coffees, 
and  Sugars,  a  Direct  Tax  of  Twenty  Millions  of  Dollars,  and  a  National 
Loan  of  One  Hundred  Millions — The  Basis  of  his  Estimates — Action  of 
Congress  upon  his  Recommendations — Issue  of  the  "  Demand  Notes  " — 
Conferences  with  the  Committee  of  the  Associated  Banks  of  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  and  Boston — Borrows  One  Hundred  and  Fifty  Millions  of 
Dollars 216 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

First  "  Seven-thirty  "  National  Loan — What  the  Banks  wanted,  and  Mr.  Chase 
would  not  do — A  Paper-money  War  inevitable — Suspension  of  Cash  Pay 
ments  by  Banks  and  Government,  December  30,  1861 — Extracts  from  Mr. 
Chase's  Report  to  Congress — Measures  proposed  by  him — Proposes  a  Na 
tional  Currency — The  Public  Debt — Strength  of  the  Army  and  Navy  .  229 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Military  and  Financial  Situation  in  January,  1862 — A  Hard-money  War  Imprac 
ticable — Proposal  of  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens  to  issue  Legal-tender  Paper 
Money — Mr.  Chase's  Opposition  to  this  Proposal — Extracts  from  his  Let 
ters  and  Reports  on  the  Subject — His  Efforts  to  avoid  the  Legal  Tender — 
Failure  of  these  Efforts,  and  submits  to  an  Unavoidable  Necessity — Opinions 
of  Republican  Representatives  and  Senators  on  the  Legal  Tender — Passage 
of  the  Legal-tender  Act — One  Hundred  and  Fifty  Million  Dollars  author 
ized — A  Second  Emission  of  One  Hundred  and  Fifty  Million  Dollars  sanc 
tioned  by  Congress — Summary  of  the  Whole  Issues  authorized — Effects  of 
the  Legal  Tender  .  .  .  ....  .  .  .  .  .236 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

Action  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  on  the  Legal  Tender — The 
Case  of  Hepburn  against  Griswold — What  the  Court  affirmed  in  that  Case 
— Resignation  of  Justice  Grier — Reconstruction  of  the  Court — Appointment 
of  Justices  Strong  and  Bradley — Prompt  Attempt  to  reverse  Hepburn 
against  Griswold — Circumstances  attending  that  Attempt — The  Reversal 
itself  unprecedented  and  revolutionary — History  of  the  Reconstruction  of 
the  Court — Mr.  Chase  on  his  own  Action  in  Hepburn  against  Griswold  .  258 


xii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XXTX. 

PAGE 

The  Temporary-loan  System — Its  Usefulness — Certificates  of  Indebtedness — 
The  Five-twenties — Condition  of  the  National  Finances  June  30,  1862 — 
The  Public  Debt — Consequences  of  the  Suspension  of  Cash  Payments  .  269 

CHAPTER  XXX 

Letters  and  Extracts  from  Letters  written  in  1861 — Of  Appointments  in  the 
Treasury  Department — Emancipation  a  Probable  Result  of  the  War — Na 
tional  Loan — Emancipation  Proclamations  by  Commanding  Generals — 
Duty  of  Government  to  provide  a  National  Currency — War  Department 
Expenditures,  1861 — What  Mr.  Chase  thought  of  Mr.  Cameron  .  .  274 

CHAPTER  XXXT 

Condition  of  the  State  Banks  in  1861 — Character  of  the  State-Bank  Circulation 
at  the  Date — Brief  Account  of  the  State  Banks  (Note) — Mr.  Chase  recom 
mends  the  National  Banking  System — Extracts  from  his  Report,  December, 
1861 — National  Banking  Bill  introduced  in  House  of  Representatives,  by 
Mr.  Hooper,  of  Massachusetts ,  .  .  282 

CHAPTER  XXXTT. 

Mr.  Chase  renews  his  Recommendation  of  a  National  Banking  System,  Decem 
ber,  1862 — Debate  upon  the  Bill  in  House  and  Senate — Final  Passage  of 
the  Bill,  February  25, 1863 — Principal  Features  of  that  Bill — Organization 
of  National  Currency  Bureau — Amendatory  Act  of  1864 — Discussion  in 
Congress — Bank  of  Commerce — Abstract  of  the  Amendatory  Act — Oper 
ation  of  the  Act — Taxation  of  State  Banks — Present  Condition  of  the  Na 
tional  Banks  .  .  .  .  ...  .  .  .  .  .293 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

The  Morrill  Tariff—  Tariff  Amendments— General  Revision  of  the  Tariff  of  1861 
— Tariff  Receipts — Internal  Revenue  Bureau  created — The  Direct  Tax — In 
come  from  Internal  Revenue — Commerce  between  Loyal  and  Insurgent 
States — Embarrassment  of  the  Subject — Mr.  Chase's  Views — Proclamation 
of  Blockade,  and  Suspension  of  Internal  Commerce  by  the  President — 
Acts  of  Congress  on  the  Subject — Policy  of  Mr.  Chase — "  Trade  shall  fol 
low  the  Flag " — Advance  in  the  Price  of  Cotton,  and  Abuses  occasioned 
by  Eager  Desire  for  Traffic — Necessity  of  the  Internal  Commerce — Regu 
lations  for  its  Government — Origin  of  Freedmen's  Bureau — Magnitude  of 
the  Internal  Commerce  System — Corruption  among  the  Officers — A  Painful 
Instance  of  this 312 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Recommendations  of  Mr.  Chase  in  Respect  of  Economy  and  Taxation — Income 
from  Taxes  during  Mr.  Buchanan's  Administration — Internal  Revenue  and 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

PAGE 

Tariff  Acts — Income  from  those  Sources — Extracts  from  Letters  of  Mr. 
Chase  to  Mr.  Fessenden    . 330 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 

Loan  Acts  of  Congress — Fractional  Currency  —  The  "Seven-thirty  National 
Loan"  of  1861 — The  "Five-twenties" — Probable  Results  of  offering  them 
to  Capitalists — Ninety-seven  to  Ninety-eight  Cents  for  the  Dollar — Declines 
to  submit  to  such  a  Loss — Appoints  a  General  Subscription  Agent — Brill 
iant  Success  of  the  Agency— The  "  Ten-forties "  fail— Some  Facts  about 
the  War— Summary .  .  ,  ,  .  .  .  '  .  .  .  .338 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

Advance  in  the  Premium  on  Gold  during  1862 — Extraordinary  Fluctuations  in  , 

1863  and  1864 — Efforts  to  control  the  Premiums  by  Treasury  Sales — Their 
Failure— The  "  Gold  Bill "  of  June  17, 1864— Its  Disastrous  Effects— Fever 
in  the  Gold  Market— Mr.  Chase's  Resignation— The  Highest  Figure  of  the 
War,  185  per  cent,  July  llth — Repeal  of  the  Gold  Bill — Government  Sales 
of  Foreign  Exchange  and  Gold  Certificates — Failure  of  all  these  Measures 

— Table  showing  Average  Premium  on  Gold  for  Five  Years       .        .        .356 

CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

Letters  and  Extracts  from  Letters  of  Mr.  Chase  written  during  the  Year  1862  .  363 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 
Letters  and  Extracts  from  Letters  written  in  1863    .        ...        ^  .......  384 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

Letters  and  Extracts  of  Letters  written  between  January  1, 1864,  and  June  30, 

1864  .  898 


CHAPTER  XL. 

Summary — Mr.  Chase's  Financial  Objects — To  obtain  Supplies — To  provide  a 
Permanent  Currency — To  provide  a  Funding  System  and  secure  Controlla 
bility  of  the  Public  Debt — Objections  to  Long  Bonds — To  secure  Early  Re 
sumption — General  Effects  of  his  Measures — Letters  to  Colonel  Van  Buren 
and  Secretary  Fessenden 406 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

1861. 
Mr.  Chase  and  the  War — Extracts  from  his  Letters  and  Diaries     ,  .418 


xiv  CONTEXTS. 

CHAPTER  XLII. 

1862. 

PAGE 

Mr.  Chase  and  the  War    .        .        .  . . 434 

•  CHAPTER  XLIII. 

1862. 
Mr.  Chase  and  the  War   .        .        .....        .        .       .        .        .        .443 

CHAPTER  XLIY. 

1863. 
Mr.  Chase  and  the  War    .        .  ,        .465 

CHAPTER  XLY. 

1862-1864. 

The  Assault  upon  Mr.  Seward  in  1862 — Resignation  of  Mr.  Chase — Withdraws 
it  and  resumes  Office — Is  a  Candidate  for  Presidential  Nomination  in  1864 
— Hiram  Barney — Republican  Party  in  New  York — Quarrel  over  the  Cus 
toms  in  New  York — Congressional  Investigation — Arrest  of  A.  M.  Palmer 
— Frank  Blair's  Speech  in  the  House  of  Representatives — Official  Patron 
age — How  it  is  dispensed — Assistant  Treasurer's  Office  in  New  York — Res 
ignation  of  Mr.  Cisco — Difficulty  in  finding  a  Successor — Resignation  of 
Mr.  Chase — Death  of  Chief-Justice  Taney — Mr.  Lincoln  nominates  Mr. 
Chase  to  be  Chief-Justice .  .  .  473 

CHAPTER  XLYI. 

Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Chase — The  Presidency  and  Mr.  Chase's  resignation  .        .  489 

CHAPTER  XL VII. 

Mr.  Chase  and  the  War — Reconstruction  and  Restoration         .        .        .        .614 

CHAPTER  XLYITI. 

Capture  of  Jefferson  Davis — Its  Embarrassment — Of  what  he  was  charged,  and 
the  Punishment  that  might  be  inflicted — Why  Mr.  Chase  refused  to  hold  a 
Court  in  Virginia — Relation  between  Civil  and  Military  Power — The  Inde 
pendence  of  the  Judicial  Department — The  Question  of  admitting  Mr. 
Davis  to  Bail — A  Letter  of  Mr.  Chase  on  the  Subject  of  the  Davis  Trial — 
Holds  Court  in  Raleigh,  June,  1867— Sickles's  Order  No.  10— Proceedings 
hi  Davis's  Case  at  Richmond — Is  pardoned 533 

CHAPTER   XLIX. 

Universal  Suffrage  a  Necessity  of  the  Republican  Party — The  Excommunication 
of  the  President — General  Grant  for  President — Object  of  the  Impeach- 


CONTENTS. 


XV 

PAGE 


ment — Ashley's  Effort  to  bring  it  about — The  Stanton  Matter — Removal  of 
Mr.  Stanton,  February  21,  1868 — Consequences  of — Prompt  Impeachment 
of  the  President — Questions  touching  the  Powers  of  the  Chief-Justice  in 
the  Trial — Their  Settlement — Excitement — Torrents  of  Lies  and  Abuse — 
Henderson,  of  Missouri — The  President's  Acquittal 546 

CHAPTER  L. 

The  "Chase  Movement"  among  the  Democrats  in  1868 — The  Fitness  of  that 
Movement — Its  Spontaneousness — Letter  to  Mr.  Belmont — Advocacy  by  the 
Herald  of  Mr.  Chase — Friends  of  Mr.  Chase  in  the  New  York  Convention 
— The  Platform — A  Half-vote  for  Mr.  Chase — Excitement — Nomination  of 
Governor  Seymour — How  Mr.  Chase  received  the  News — Partisan  Misrep 
resentation — Mr.  Chase's  Views — A  Letter  of  Governor  Seymour  .  .  560 

CHAPTER  LI. 

Letters  of  Mr.  Chase  upon  Impeachment  and  the  New  York  Convention  .        .  574 

CHAPTER  LIT. 

Mr.  Chase's  Religion — His  Simple  Habits — Hospitality — His  Modesty — Love  of 
Truth  and  of  Justice — His  Vast  Labor — Description  of  the  Treasury  De 
partment — Organization  of  New  Bureaus — Rule  about  Women — Personal 
Characteristics — His  Interest  in  Military  Matters — Financial  Beliefs  and 
Accomplishment — Political  Action — As  a  Member  of  the  Cabinet — As  a 
Lawyer — Personal — His  Property 594 

THE  LAST  SCENE  OP  ALL •    .  619 

APPENDIX         ...• 631 

EULOGY  OP  MB.  CHASE 635 

INDEX  .  663 


XTNI 


LIFE  OF  SALMON  POETLAND  CHASE. 


CHAPTER   I. 

BIRTH     OF     SALMON     P.     CHASE CORNISH HIS     ANCESTRY HIS 

MARRIAGES     AND     CHILDREN SOME    ACCOUNT   OF   THE     CHASE 

FAMILY CHILDHOOD. 

SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE  was  born  in  Cornish, 
New  Hampshire,  January  13,  1808.  For  more  than  three 
score  years  before  his  birth,  his  grandfather  and  his  father,  with 
their  families,  had  dwelt  in  Cornish ;  and  their  homestead,  a 
substantial  country-house  of  the  eighteenth  century,  still  stands, 
as  firm  and  sound  as  when — now  more  than  a  hundred  years 
ago — his  ancestors  built  and  lived  in  it.  Fertile  meadows  sur 
round  it ;  a  half-mile  in  its  rear  rise  up  the  stately  hills  of  Cor 
nish  ;  at  its  front  rolls  the  beautiful  Connecticut ;  in  the  west, 
on  the  Vermont  side  of  the  river,  towering  grandly  among  the 
neighboring  summits,  the  Mngly  Ascutney  lifts  his  head  more 
than  three  thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  and  at  sunset  covers 
1 


2  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

with  his  shadow  the  old  homestead  of  Dudley  and  Ithamar 
Chase. 

Family  names  and  family  history  are  of  no  political,  and 
perhaps  even  of  small  social  importance,  in  a  republic,  where,  it 
is  said,  "  worth  makes  the  man."  But  it  is  nevertheless  a  fine 
impulse  of  our  nature  that  prompts  us  to  pride  in  an  honorable 
ancestry.  That  of  Mr.  Chase  was  neither  royal  nor  noble,  but 
through  many  generations  it  has  been  marked  for  the  highest 
qualities  that  can  distinguish  men — temperance,  probity,  reli 
gious  life  and  intellectual  strength. 

He  was  ninth  in  descent  from  Thomas  Chase  of  Chesham, 
England,  and  sixth  from  Aquila  Chase,  born  in  England,  ship 
master,  who  settled  in  the  town  of  ISTewbury,  Massachusetts, 
about  16iO.  The  fifth  son  of  this  Aquila — who  was  second  of 
his  name,1  and  in  the  fourth  generation  from  Thomas  Chase  of 
Chesham — was  Moses,  born  1663.  Moses  Chase  married  Anne 
Follansbee,  and  became  the  father  of  ten  children,  the  two  elder 
of  whom  were  Moses  and  Daniel,  twins,  born  September,  1685. 
Daniel  married  Sarah  March,  in  1706,  and  became  the  father 
of  ten  children  also,  Samuel  being  the  first.  Samuel  married 
Mary  Dudley  of  Sutton,  and  removed  to  Cornish.  He  had 
nine  children,  the  third  of  whom,  Dudley,  was  born  in  1730, 
and  in  1753  was  married  to  Alice  Corbett  of  Mendon.  Dudley 
and  Alice  Chase  had  fourteen  children,  and  eight  of  them  were 
sons  who  attained  to  the  years  of  manhood :  Simeon,  Salmon, 
Ithamar,  Baruch,  Corbett,  Heber,  Dudley,  and  Philander,  and 
all  of  these  arrived  at  more  or  less  distinction  in  their  several 
walks  of  life. 

1  Shortly  after  Mr.  Chase  was  elected  Governor  of  Ohio,  a  gentleman  claiming  to 
be  his  relative  wrote  him,  touching  the  supposed  great  "Chase  estate"  in  England, 
awaiting  heirs,  and  solicited  assistance  in  order  to  establish  the  claims  of  the  Amer 
ican  branch  of  the  family.  The  Governor  replied  that  he  had  no  objection  to  admit 
the  relationship  asserted  by  his  correspondent,  though  their  common  ancestor  was 
no  nearer  than  Adajn,  provided  his  correspondent  was  an  honest  man,  and  voted  the 
Free-soil  ticket !  He  added  that  the  best  way  to  make  a  living  is  by  labor,  and  that 
he  had  no  faith  hi  the  supposed  English  estate,  and  no  wish  to  participate  in  the 
effort  to  get  it,  even  if  it  existed,  since  great  injury  must  result  to  innocent  persons 
if  the  effort  were  successful. 

It  may  be  worth  while  saying  here,  for  the  benefit  of  the  curious,  that  there  seems 
to  be  no  basis  to  the  stories  current,  of  a  great  estate  in  England  awaiting  the  heirs  of 
Aquila  Chase.  They  are  probably  fictitious ;  at  any  rate  rest  upon  flimsy  foundations. 


FAMILY  HISTORY.  3 

Ithamar  Chase  was  born  in  1763,  and  in  1789  married  Jan- 
nette  Ralston  of  Keene,  daughter  of  Alexander  Ralston  and 
Janette  his  wife,  both  natives  of  Falkirk,  Scotland.  Ithamar 
and  Jannette  Chase  were  the  parents  of  eleven  children,  and 
of  these  Salmon  Portland  Chase  was  the  eighth. 

Salmon  Portland  Chase  *  was  thrice  married :  First,  March 
4,  1834,  to  Katharine  Jane  Garniss,  who  was  born  in  New 
York  City,  August  21,  1811 ;  died  December  1,  1835.  They 
had  one  child,  Katharine,  born  November  16, 1835  ;  died  Feb 
ruary  6,  1840.  Second,  September  26,  1839,  to  Eliza  Ann 
Smith,  born  at  Cincinnati,  November  12,  1821 ;  died  Septem 
ber  29,  1845.  They  had  issue  three  children — Katharine,  born 
August  13,  1840  ;  Lizzie,  born  May  30,  1842 ;  died  August  30, 
1842  ;  Lizzie,  born  June  1,  1843  ;  died  July  24,  1844.  Third, 
November  6,  1846,  to  Sarah  Bella  Dunlop  Ludlow,  born  near 
Cincinnati,  April  20, 1820.  They  had  issue  two  children  :  Janet 
Ralston,  born  September  19,  1847 ;  Josephine  Ludlow,  born 
July  3,  1849 ;  died  July  28,  1850.  Sarah  Bella  D.  L.  Chase 
died  at  Clifton  near  Cincinnati,  January  13,  1852. 

Two  only  of  the  six  children  born  to  Mr.  Chase  lived  to 
mature  years :  Katharine,  daughter  of  his  second  wife,  married 
November  12,  1863,  to  "William  Sprague  of  Rhode  Island,  now 
a  Senator  in  Congress  from  that  State ;  and  Janet  Ralston, 
married  March  23,  1871,  to  William  Sprague  Hoyt,  of  New 
York  City. 

Although  Mr.  Chase  was  the  husband  of  three  wives,  his 
married  life  was  somewhat  less  than  thirteen  years.  He  out 
lived  all  his  brothers  and  sisters,  and  of  the  former  none  left 
male  issue. 

His  uncles,  Salmon,  Baruch,  and  Dudley  Chase,  were  gradu 
ates  of  Dartmouth  College,  and  all  became  lawyers.  Dudley 
was  five  times  elected  Speaker  of  the  Yermont  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  ;  was  United  States  Senator  from  1813  to  1817, 
resigning  in  the  latter  year.  He  was  then  elected  Chief- Justice 
of  the  State,  and  reflected  three  successive  years ;  and  was  again 
United  States  Senator  from  1825  to  1831.  He  died  at  Ran- 

1  The  middle  name  of  the  Chief-Justice  was  given  him  by  his  parents,  to  com 
memorate  the  death  of  his  uncle  Salmon  at  Portland.  Mr.  Chase  was  wont  to  say 
that  he  was  his  uncle's  monument. 


4  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

dolpli,  full  of  years  and  honors.  Heber  and  Corbett  Chase  be 
came  physicians ;  Simeon  and  Ithamar  were  farmers,  although 
the  latter  for  many  years  represented  his  district  in  the  Council 
of  New  Hampshire,  and  was  also  a  justice  of  the  peace,  and  a 
good  deal  talked  of  for  Governor  of  the  State,  though  he  never 
became  a  candidate.  Philander  Chase,  the  youngest  of  this 
family,  was  graduated  at  Dartmouth,  and  was  subsequently 
Episcopal  Bishop  of  Ohio,  and  afterward  of  Illinois.  "  While 
a  student  at  Dartmouth,"  says  Mr.  Chase,  in  "  The  Trowbridge 
Letters,"  "  poring  over  some  books  which  were  in  the  college 
library,  Philander  Chase  became  convinced  (he  had  been  reared 
a  Congregationalist)  that  the  Episcopal  Church  was  that  which 
the  apostles  had  founded,  and,  prompt  to  act  upon  his  convic 
tions,  had  joined  its  communion.  His  zeal  or  his  logic,  or  both, 
so  wrought  upon  my  grandfather's  family  thatr  so  far  as  I  know 
without  exception,  they  all  became  Episcopalians.  This  must 
have  happened  about  the  beginning  of  the  century ;  for  an  Epis 
copal  Church  was  built  and  consecrated,  and  the  family  were 
devout  worshipers  there,  when  I  was  born.  The  bishop  was 
an  earnest,  able,  faithful,  valiant  man ;  imperious  it  may  be  ; 
confident  in  himself,  but  more  confident  in  God — always  saying, 
'Jehovah  Jireh,  God  will  help,'  and  always  finding  himself 
helped.  My  father  never  went  to  college,  but  had  the  common- 
school  education  of  other  farmer-boys.  As  he  grew  in  years,  he 
married  my  mother,  then  a  handsome  young  woman,  the  daugh 
ter  of  Scottish  parents — Ealston  pere,  Balloch  mere — and  her 
self  just  escaped  from  birth  in  Scotland,  for  her  parents  came 
over  the  very  year  she  saw  the  light." 

Mr.  Chase  has  written  that  his  earliest  recollections  of  him 
self  were  of  a  dangerous  attack  of  a  malignant  fever ;  and  next, 
of  the  school  and  school-house,  and  his  teacher,  Daniel  Breck 
of  Yermont,  afterward  a  distinguished  citizen  of  Kentucky,  and 
a  member  of  the  highest  judicial  tribunal  of  that  State.  Mr. 
Chase  when  a  mere  child,  not  always  able  to  make  his  way 
through  the  heavy  New-England  snows  to  the  little  school- 
house,  not  more  than  a  hundred  rods  distant  from  his  father's 
gate,  and  often  borne  thither  upon  the  shoulders  of  older  boys, 
and  sometimes  by  the  teacher  himself,  was  remarkable  for  his  ap 
plication  to  his  childish  studies,  and  for  his  success  and  accuracy 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CHILDHOOD.  5 

in  mastering  them.  It  was  not  a  very  serious  task,  of  course,  to 
get  to  the  head  of  the  spelling-classes,  having  but  one  competi 
tor  at  all  formidable  ;  a  little  girl  Bessy  Marble  by  name,  the 
pretty  daughter  of  a  near  neighbor  and  intimate  friend  of  his 
father's.  Bessy  was  his  rival  in  the  school,  and  his  companion 
out  of  it  ;  she  grew  up  an  accomplished  and  superior  woman, 
whose  after-history  was  not  without  some  coloring  of  romance. 
The  boy  was  a  resolute,  hard-headed,  ambitious  little  fellow, 
said  Mr.  Breck,  with  whom  so  soon  as  he  could  read,  reading 
became  a  passion.  To  get  away  into  some  unnoticed  corner  of  the 
house,  or  under  a  clump  of  trees,  with  a  book,  and  Bessy  at  his 
side,  reading  aloud  to  her,  was  his  chief  happiness  and  occupa 
tion.  "Kollin's  Ancient  History"  —  dear,  delightful  book  —  was 
his  earliest  treasure. 

"  I  was  religiously  educated,"  writes  Mr.  Chase,  "  but  not 
under  any  very  severe  restraint.  I  was  baptized  into  the  Epis 
copal  Church,  and  among  my  earliest  recollections  are  those  of 
a  square  pew  in  the  south  side  of  the  little  church,  near  the  east 
wall,  where,  however,  I  think  I  did  more  sleeping  than  any 
thing  else." 

Five  generations  of  his  ancestors,  and  more  than  fifty  mem 
bers  of  the  Chase  family,  sleep  in  the  little  Cornish  church 
yard. 

The  inscriptions  upon  the  tombstones  of  some  of  them  are 
in  the  quaint  but  simple  and  beautiful  language  of  New-Eng 
land  people  threescore  years  ago;  while  the  sculptured  angel- 
forms  which  almost  invariably  appear  at  the  tops  of  the  stones, 
as  introductory  somewhat  to  the  inscriptions  which  follow, 
though  highly  regarded  then,  rather  startle  the  finer  artistic 
tastes  of  the  present  generation. 

"  I  was  a  rustic  boy,"  writes  Mr.  Chase,  "  very  rustic  ;  full  of 
faith  ;  not  much  given  to  ask  for  the  causes  of  things  ;  ready  to 
accept  what  was  told  me,  but  equally  ready  to  correct  errors  of 
information  by  better  information  or  experience  ;  ambitious  to 
be  at  the  head  of  my  class  and  without  much  other  ambition, 
and  not  grudging  that  place  even  to  any  one  who  fairly  earned 
it,  and  least  of  all,  to  pretty  Bessy  Marble. 

"  And  so,  with  a  kind  father  and  mother  watching  over  me  ; 
with  old  Ascutney  looking  down  upon  me  every  morning  from 


SITY 


6  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

his  mists,  and  every  evening  from  his  royal  panoply  of  gilded 
clouds,  the  old  Connecticut  River  rolling  by,  and  the  Connecti 
cut  Valley  meadows  and  ]S~ew  Hampshire  hills  over  which  to 
roam,  and  gather  strawberries  and  wild-flowers,"  passed  the  hap 
py  childhood  of  Salmon  Portland  Chase. 


CHAPTEE   II. 


REMOVAL    TO    KEENE  —  HIS    FATHER'S    DEATH  —  RECOLLECTIONS    OF 
KEENE  —  AT    SCHOOL   AT    WINDSOR  —  JOURNEY    TO    OHIO  —  NIAG 

" 
WORTHINGTON. 


"TTTTEEN  Mr.  Chase  was  about  eight  years  old  his  father  re- 
V  V  moved  from  Cornish  to  Keene  in  Cheshire,  and  dwelt 
there  in  a  house  belonging  to  his  father-in-law,  Alexander  Ral- 
ston.  "  I  remember  one  spring  and  one  summer  in  that  house," 
writes  Mr.  Chase  ;  "  the  spring  by  the  melting  of  the  snow  and 
the  rush  of  the  surface-waters  into  the  Ashuelot,  and  the  sum 
mer  by  a  ridiculous  attempt  I  made  to  dry  up  a  small  pool  by 
building  a  fire  upon  an  extemporized  raft  and  setting  it  afloat 
upon  the  water.  I  had  somehow  lost  my  shoe  in  the  pool,  and 
knowing  that  water  could  be  dried  up  by  heat,  undertook  to  re 
cover  my  shoe  in  that  way.  But  I  soon  abandoned  the  attempt. 
"  I  have  a  dim  recollection  of  the  district  school  —  there  were 
several  in  the  town  —  as  a  dark  room  with  a  great  many  boys  in 
it,  on  our  side  of  the  street  between  my  father's  and  the  meet 
ing-house.  One  day  I  got  into  a  fight  with  a  neighbor  boy,  the 
only  personal  fight  I  ever  was  in.  He  threw  a  brick  or  stone  at 
me  ;  I  closed  upon  him,  but,  as  we  were  soon  parted,  there  were 
no  serious  consequences.  I  remember  I  did  not  want  to  fight, 
but  thought  a  crisis  had  come  (though  I  did  not  know  the  word 
then),  and  that  I  must  hit  him  —  which  I  did." 

ISTot  long  after  going  to  Keene,  in  August,  1817,  Ithamar 
Chase  was  attacked  by  paralysis,  and  after  lingering  some  days 
in  unconsciousness,  died  surrounded  by  his  family.  He  was  a 


8  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

noted  man  in  the  little  community,  and  honorably  known  in  the 
State ;  a  leading  member  of  the  Masonic  fraternity ;  the  friend 
of  Jeremiah  Mason  of  Boston,  and  of  Daniel  Webster,  then  a 
rising  young  lawyer  and  member  of  Congress ;  and,  in  the  elab 
orate  style  of  the  times,  was  addressed  as  the  "  Honorable  Itha- 
rnar  Chase,  Esq. ; "  titles  in  which,  remarks  Mr.  Chase,  "  my 
mother  took  an  innocent  pleasure,  mixed  perhaps  with  a  little 
pride."  Through  the  inheritance  of  his  wife,  Jannette  Ralston, 
he  had  come  into  the  possession  of  considerable  property — for 
those  days— in  Keene,  and  had  invested  a  portion  of  it  in  the  es 
tablishment  of  a  glass  factory ;  but  with  the  close  of  the  war 
came  a  revision  of  the  tariff ;  customs  duties  were  lowered ; 
there  was  a  restoration  of  foreign  trade  and  importation  of  for 
eign  glass ;  prices  fell  upon  home  production,  so  that  the  factory 
proved  a  serious  loss,  and  the  business  affairs  of  Ithamar  Chase 
had  fallen  into  some  disorder  even  before  his  death.  When  the 
estate  was  finally  settled,  Mrs.  Chase  retained  but  a  remnant  of 
her  property.  As  soon  as  she  could  arrange  to  do  so,  she  re 
moved  with  her  family  to  a  yellow  "  story-and-a-half  "  house,  at 
the  corner  of  Main  Street  and  the  Swanzey  road  to  Boston. 
"  A  guide-post,  which  stood  opposite,"  says  Mr.  Chase,  "  read : 
'  tSir'  To  SWANZEY  7  MILES,'  and  '  J^p33  To  BOSTON  77  MILES,' 
and  often  sent  my  young  imagination  to  the  neighboring  town 
and  the  great  city.  It  seemed  very  far  off  and  very  huge.  My 
eldest  sister  was  married  in  that  house  in  1818,  and  from  that 
house  my  brother  Dudley,  a  youth  of  perhaps  sixteen  years, 
went  away  to  sea.  He  shipped  at  Boston,  and  how  anxiously 
we  all  followed  the  course  of  the  vessel !  We  heard  of  her  in 
the  Mediterranean,  at  Barcelona ;  then  in  other  seas  and  in  other 
ports.  Finally,  two  or  three  years  after,  we  learned  that  he  had 
left  the  ship  and  died  at  Demerara,  South  America.  His  was 
the  first  death  among  my  brothers  and  sisters,  and  there  were 
eleven  of  us. 

"  There  was  a  small  farm  connected  with  my  mother's  house, 
along  one  side  of  which  ran  a  lane  back  to  the  hills,  bordering 
the  little  farm  for  near  a  half-mile.  As  I  was  going  along  it  one 
cold  morning  in  the  late  fall  or  early  winter  I  received  a  lesson 
I  have  never  forgotten.  By  the  roadside  was  a  man  lying  stark 
dead.  His  face  lay  downward  in  the  shallow  water  of  the  road- 


AT  SCHOOL  AT  WINDSOR.  9 

side  ditch.  He  had  been  in  town  the  night  before ;  had  got 
drunk,  and  in  seeking  his  way  to  his  house  on  the  hill-side,  had 
probably  fallen  forward  into  the  water,  not  deep  enough  to 
reach  to  his  ears,  and  unable  to  move  had  perished.  Some 
neighbors  came  and  removed  the  body,  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bar- 
stow,  before  temperance  societies  were  established,  preached  a 
sermon  on  the  evils  of  intemperance ;  but  what  sermon  could 
rival  in  eloquence  the  awful  spectacle  of  a  dead  drunkard,  mis 
erably  perishing  where  the  slightest  remnant  of  sense  or  strength 
would  have  sufficed  to  save  ! 

"  We  lived  at  Keene  nearly  three  years  after  my  father's 
death  before  I  went  "West,  and  during  that  time  I  passed  several 
months,  including  a  part  if  not  the  whole  of  one  winter  at 
Windsor,  at  school  under  charge  of  Colonel  Dunham.  Here  I 
began  Latin  in  good  earnest,  and  was  a  diligent  scholar.  It  was 
here,  too,  that  I  got  my  first  notions  of  political  parties.  Colo 
nel  Dunham  had  been  an  editor,  and  in  the  attic  of  his  house 
were  still  kept  files  of  his  newspaper,  the  Washingtonian,  I  be 
lieve,  or  the  Columbian — fiercely  Federal  in  sentiment.  I  had 
learned  from  my  mother  that  the  newspapers  were  not  to  be  im 
plicitly  relied  upon,  and  did  not  receive  the  statements  of  the 
Washingtonian  with  absolute  belief ;  but  certainly  after  read 
ing  it  my  impressions  of  James  Madison  and  his  supporters  were 
not  of  a  flattering  kind. 

"  I  went  through  the  Latin  grammar  at  Colonel  Dunham's ; 
through  "  Historia  Sacra,"  through  a  great  part  of  "  Yiri  Romse," 
and  began  to  read  the  "  Bucolics "  of  Virgil.  I  was  counted 
quite  a  prodigy,  but  I  am  now  sure  that  thorough  instruction  in 
one-quarter  as  much  would  have  been  better  than  superficial 
coursing  through  the  whole. 

"  There  was  a  boy  among  us  who  stood  at  the  head  of  us  all 
for  talent  and  general  capacity.  After  a  various  experience — 
preacher,  author,  lawyer  perhaps — he  yielded  to  the  seductions 
of  intemperance,  and  he  grew  to  be  an  old  man,  but  older  in 
wear  and  impairment  than  in  years.  One  day  he  came  into  my 
library  at  Washington,  feeble,  ill-clad,  and  almost  hopeless,  and 
asked  for  help.  I  gave  him  some  money  and  employment  in 
the  Treasury  Department,  and  thought  he  was  saved.  But  the 
liquor-devil  was  too  strong :  after  some  months  he  gave  way ; 


10  LIFE  OF  SALMOX  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

was  excused — gave  way  again,  and  was  again  excused ;  and  again 
gave  way,  and  was  dismissed.  There  was  no  help  for  it. 

"  I  think  it  was  in  181S-'19  that  I  was  at  Mr.  Dunham's. 
After  my  return  to  Keene  I  recited  to  Kev.  Mr.  Barstow,  and 
with  him  I  began  Greek,  going  through  the  grammar  and  mak 
ing  some  progress  in  the  Greek  Testament.  I  also  took  up 
Euclid.  I  am  not  likely  to  forget  the  first  proposition.  No 
body  explained  any  thing  to  me,  and  I  had  not  the  least  idea  of 
what  was  to  be  done.  I  knew  I  had  a  lesson  to  get,  and  I  got  it. 
I  did  not  know  that  any  thing  was  to  be  reasoned  and  proved, 
and  I  neither  reasoned  nor  proved — but  simply  committed  the 
proposition  to  memory.  I  was  not  long  in  finding  out,  how 
ever,  what  problems  and  theorems  meant,  and  went  to  work 
then  in  the  right  way,  and  not  unsuccessfully." 

And  now  happened  an  important  event  in  the  student's  life. 
His  uncle,  Philander  Chase,  the  Episcopal  Bishop  of  Ohio,  made 
a  visit  at  his  mother's,  and  discerning  in  his  nephew  those 
qualities  of  strictness  and  application  which  are  after  all  the 
surest  foundations  of  eminence,  soon  after  his  return  to  Ohio 
wrote  Mrs.  Chase,  proposing  to  receive  her  son  into  his  own 
household  at  Worthington.  After  some  natural  hesitation  she 
consented,  and  in  April,  1820,  the  lad  began  his  journey  to  the 
West.  "  I  tried  to  find  out  where  I  was  going,"  he  writes,  "  and 
got  some  queer  information.  '  The  Ohio,'  as  the  country  was 
then  called,  was  a  great  way  off ;  it  was  very  fertile ;  cucum 
bers  grew  on  trees  !  there  were  wonderful  springs,  whose  waters 
were  like  New-England  rum !  deer  and  wolves  were  plenty,  and 
people  few.  A  copy  of  Morse's  'Gazetteer'  gave  .somewhat 
better  but  still  scanty  information." 

He  began  his  journey  in  charge  of  his  elder  brother,  Alex 
ander  Ralston  Chase,  who  was  going  West  with  the  expectation 
of  joining  General  Cass's  expedition  into  the  Indian  country. 
This  brother  was  in  company  with  Henry  Howe  Schoolcraf  t, 
who  afterward  became  so  distinguished. 

The  journey  to  Buffalo  was  uneventful.  At  Black  Rock,  near 
the  city,  they  were  to  take  the  steamer,  the  Walk-in-the-Water, 
for  Cleveland,  but  were  somewhat  delayed  by  reason  of  ice  in 
the  lake.  Meantime,  while  so  detained,  Alexander  Ralston  Chase 
and  Mr.  Schoolcraft  having  gone  on  a  visit  to  Niagara,  Mr. 


"THE  FERRY-BOY."  H 

Salmon  Portland  Chase  felt  sufficiently  aggrieved  at  their  omis 
sion  to  take  him  along  with  them,  to  project  a  foot  expedition 
there  in  company  with  a  lad  whose  acquaintance  he  had  formed 
since  his  arrival  in  Buffalo.  "  The  forest  was  burning,"  says 
Mr.  Chase,  "  when  we  started,  and  the  road  lay  through  it  and 
seemed  dangerous,  though  probably  there  was  no  danger.  At 
any  rate  we  went  through,  and,  almost  wearied  out,  in  the  even 
ing  stopped  at  a  farmer's  two  or  three  miles,  perhaps,  from  the 
falls,  and  asked  for  lodgings  for  the  night,  which  were  cheer 
fully  given.  Is  it  remembrance  or  fancy,  that  a  pitchfork,  with 
its  steel  points  driven  into  the  floor  so  as  to  hold  it  nearly  erect, 
vibrated  from  the  jar  of  the  cataract  ?  The  next  morning,  ap 
proaching  the  falls,  we  gazed  wonderingly  on  the  indescribable 
flow  and  roar  of  the  waters.  "We  descended  the  rude  steps,  and 
the  rough  and  precipitous  path  which  led  down  into  the  gorge 
at  the  foot  of  the  falls ;  and  there  was  a  new  wonder — a  hillock 
of  ice,  formed  by  the  spray,  rose  just  below  the  reach  of  the 
falling  waters,  forty  or  fifty  feet  high,  and  shone  like  a  moun 
tainous  pearl  in  the  sun  !  Near  it  I  found  my  brother  and  Mr. 
Schoolcraf  t,  who  were  a  good  deal  surprised  to  see  me,  and  per 
haps  a  little  displeased.  But  they  took  charge  of  me,  and  I  got 
back  to  Buffalo  much  easier  than  I  got  to  the  falls." 

The  steamboat-ride  to  Cleveland  was  not  a  long  one,  though 
at  the  beginning  the  Walk-in-the-Water  was  aided  after  a  some 
what  novel  method :  several  yoke  of  oxen  were  attached  to  her 
by  tow-lines  and  materially  assisted  in  forcing  the  current.  In 
the  open  lake  the  steamer  was  helped  in  her  progress,  not  by 
oxen,  but  by  sails.  At  Cleveland  his  brother  and  Mr.  School- 
craft  left  him,  and,  being  compelled  to  remain  there  several  days, 
he  amused  himself  during  some  portion  of  his  time  by  ferrying 
passengers  across  the  Cuyahoga.1  Presently  he  had  an  oppor- 

1  In  the  winter  of  1863  and  '64  Mr.  Chase,  then  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  wrote 
a  series  of  letters  to  J.  T.  Trowbridge,  Esq.,  of  Boston,  which  contained  a  pretty 
full  outline  sketch  of  his  life.  Those  letters  have  been  freely  drawn  upon  for  use  hi 
these  pages,  more  especially  with  relation  to  Mr.  Chase's  earlier  history. 

Mr.  Trowbridge  wrote  an  entertaining  little  book  (intended  particularly  for  boys' 
reading)  which,  joining  invention  and  fact,  contained  enough  of  incident  to  make  it 
popular,  and  it  had  a  large  sale.  It  was  called  "  The  Ferry-Boy  and  Financier,"  and 
derived  its  title — more  to  be  commended,  perhaps,  for  alliteration  than  description 
— from  Mr.  Chase's  brief  ferry  experiences  on  the  Cuyahoga,  as  related  in  the  text. 


12  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

tunity  to  go  to  Medina,  where  a  convention  of  Episcopal  clergy 
men  was  in  session.  From  Medina  he  proceeded  toward  TVorth- 
ington  in  charge  of  two  young  men  who  had  been  delegates. 
"  The  settlement  of  the  country,"  says  Mr.  Chase,  "  was  only 
begun.  Great  forests  stretched  across  the  State.  Carriage-ways 
were  hardly  practicable.  Almost  all  traveling  was  performed 
on  foot  or  on  horseback.  The  two  young  men  had  two  horses, 
and  the  arrangement  was,  that  we  were  to  ?*ide  and  tie :  that  is 
to  say,  one  was  to  ride  ahead  some  distance,  then  dismount  and 
tie  his  horse,  and  walk  forward.  The  person  on  foot  was  to  come 
up,  take  the  horse,  ride  on  beyond  the  walker  in  front,  then  tie ; 
and  so  on.  "We  passed  through  Wooster,  staying  there  over 
night.  The  place  seemed  to  me  to  be  a  great  one,  and  the 
lighted  houses  as  we  went  in  after  dark  very  splendid.  In  three 
or  four  days  we  reached  Worthington.  I  entered  the  town 
walking,  and  met  my  uncle  in  the  street  with  two  or  three  of 
his  clergy  or  friends." 


CHAPTEK    III. 


MOVAL  TO  CINCINNATI CINCINNATI   COLLEGE AN  INCIDENT 

EETUENS   TO   KEENE. 

AT  Worthington  Mr.  Chase  entered  upon  his  school-life, 
with  characteristic  earnestness  and  energy.  Among  his 
associates  were  several  who  afterward  attained  to  distinction; 
the  more  prominent,  perhaps,  being  Charles  D.  Drake,  late  a 
Senator  in  Congress  from  Missouri,  and  now  Chief -Justice  of 
the  United  States  Court  of  Claims  ;  and  Brigadier  Benjamin  W. 
Brice,  late  Paymaster-General  of  the  United  States  Army. 

He  here  studied  Greek,  and  with  success.  His  first  public 
exercise — on  an  exhibition  occasion  in  1821 — was  an  original 
Greek  oration.  "My  subject,"  writes  Mr.  Chase,  "was  Paul 
and  John  compared ;  Paul  being  the  principal  figure.  "What 
trouble  I  had,"  he  continues,  "  to  turn  my  English  thoughts 
into  Greek  forms!  The  subject  helped  me,  however,  for  it 
allowed  me  to  take  sentences  from  the  Testament;  and  thus 
abridge  my  labors."  But  he  was  quite  successful,  and  the  good 
bishop  was  proud  of  his  oration,  and  the  orator  was  proud  as 
the  bishop. 

Out  of  school  he  did  "chores" — took  grain  to  mill  and 
brought  back  meal  or  flour ;  milked  the  cows ;  drove  them  to 
and  from  pasture  ;  took  wool  to  the  carding-f actory  "  over  on 
the  Scioto ;"  brought  wood  into  the  house  in  winter-time,  and 
built  fires ;  helped  to  make  maple-sugar  in  the  proper  season ; 
helped  plant  and  sow  ;  in  short,  did  whatever  a  boy  of  his  years 
could  do  on  a  farm,  and  earned  his  living  by  his  labor. 


14  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

A  ludicrous  incident  of  his  Worthington  life  fastened  itself 
strongly  in  his  memory.  One  morning  the  bishop  and  all  the 
older  members  of  the  family  went  away,  leaving  the  boy  at 
home,  with  directions  to  kill  and  dress  a  pig  for  the  next  day's 
dinner.  "  I  had  no  great  difficulty,"  he  says,  "  in  catching  and 
slaughtering  a  fat  young  porker.  A  tub  of  hot  water  was  in 
readiness  for  plunging  him  in,  preparatory  to  taking  off  his 
bristles.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  water  was  too  hot,  or 
perhaps  when  I  soused  the  pig  into  it  I  kept  him  in  too  long. 
At  any  rate,  when  I  undertook  to  remove  the  bristles,  expecting 
they  would  come  off  almost  of  themselves,  I  found  to  my  dis 
may  that  I  could  not  start  one  of  them !  In  pig-killing  phrase, 
the  bristles  were  set.  I  pulled,  and  pulled  in  vain.  What  was 
I  to  do  ?  The  pig  must  be  dressed  ;  about  that  there  must  be 
no  failure.  I  thought  of  my  cousin's  razors — a  nice  new  pair — 
just  suited  to  the  use  of  a  spruce  young  clergyman  as  he  was. 
]STo  sooner  thought  of  than  done.  1  got  the  razors,  and  shaved 
the  pig  from  tail  to  snout !  I  think  the  shaving  was  a  success. 
The  razors  were  damaged  by  the  operation,  however,  but  they 
were  carefully  cleaned  and  restored  to  their  place.  My  im 
pression  is,  that  on  the  whole,  the  killing  was  not  satisfactory 
to  the  bishop,  and  that  my  cousin  did  not  find  his  razors  ex 
actly  in  condition  for  use  the  next  morning !  But  the  opera 
tion  had  its  moral,  and  showed  that  where  there  is  a  will  there 
is  a  way. 

"  My  uncle  was  a  thoroughly  practical,  and  at  the  same  time 
a  thoroughly  religious  man.  He  desired  that  I  should  become 
a  clergyman  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  and  took  pains 
to  make  me  read  books  which  should  convince  me  that  it  was 
the  true  Church.  I  read  them  and  was  convinced,  and  became 
a  zealous  champion  of  the  Episcopacy.  It  was  here,  too,  that 
under  the  instructions  of  the  bishop,  I  was  confirmed ;  and  to 
me  it  seemed  an  awful  and  affecting  act.  The  youth  takes  upon 
himself  the  promises  made  for  him  at  baptism.  Whatever  may 
be  the  validity  of  promises  made  in  behalf  of  an  unconscious 
babe ;  whether  or  not  such  promises  add  any  thing  to  the  force 
of  the  moral  obligations  which  rest  upon  every  human  soul  from 
the  first  dawn  of  consciousness,  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the 
import  of  the  pledges  the  youth  makes  when  he  receives  confir- 


AT  CINCINNATI  COLLEGE.  15 

mation.  I  felt  them  deeply,  and  made  earnest  resolutions  to 
keep  them. 

"  I  was  at  Worthington  a  little  more  than  two  years ;  from 
June,  1820,  to  November  or  December,  1822.  But  the  school 
was  broken  up  during  most  of  the  second  year,  and  my  scholar 
ship — such  as  it  was — grew  rusty.  The  bishop  made  me  read 
some  Latin,  and  of  my  own  accord  I  read  some  history  and 
books  on  church  government. 

"  The  Church  in  Ohio  was  at  this  time  weak  and  the  Episco 
pal  revenue  scanty.  Most  of  its  members  were  farmers,  and 
few  of  those  who  followed  other  pursuits  had  considerable  in 
comes.  Prices  of  all  provisions  were  low :  corn  was  ten  and 
even  six  cents  a  bushel — the  purchaser  himself  gathering  it  in 
the  field.  Twenty-five  cents  would  buy  a  bushel  of  wheat,  good 
and  in  good  order.  There  were  no  good  roads,  no  accessible 
markets,  no  revenue,  and  salaries  were  small.  I  have  heard  the 
bishop  say  that  his  whole  money  income,  as  bishop,  did  not  pay 
his  postage  bills.  It  took  a  bushel  of  wheat  to  pay  for  the  con 
veyance  of  a  letter  over  one  hundred  and  sixty  miles. 

"  Under  these  circumstances,  in  1822,  Bishop  Chase  was  of 
fered  the  presidency  of  Cincinnati  College,  and  in  November  of 
that  year,  I  think  removed  thither  with  his  family. 

"  I  entered  the  college  a  Freshman,  but  soon  conceived  the 
idea  that  by  extra  study  I  could  be  advanced  to  the  next  higher 
class.  It  was  not  over-difficult  to  accomplish  this  object,  for  the 
requirements  of  scholarship  were  not  exacting.  In  a  short  time 
I  offered  myself  to  be  examined  for  advanced  standing ;  was 
successful  in  the  examination,  and  was  promoted  to  the  Sopho 
more  class. 

"  It  was  not  a  study-loving  set  of  boys  who  resorted  to  Cin 
cinnati  College  at  that  time.  "We  made  no  great  progress  in 
our  studies ;  we  began  Homer  in  the  Sophomore  year,  and  were 
two  weeks  getting  through  the  prolegomena  of  the  first  book. 
If  ever  we  read  any  of  the  book  itself,  I  have  forgotten  it. 

"  To  make  amends  for  defects  of  study,  however,  there  was 
a  deal  of  fun  and  mischief.  One  morning  Dr.  Slack  came  into 
the  chapel  for  morning  prayers,  and  found  himself  anticipated 
in  the  pulpit  by  a  stuffed  owl,  with  a  pair  of  spectacles  like  his 
own  ingeniously  fastened  over  its  glazed  eyes.  Not  in  the  least 


16  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

disconcerted,  the  doctor  removed  the  creature,  and  proceeded 
with  the  service,  to  the  discomfiture  of  the  boys,  who  expected 
an  explosion.  At  another  time  a  cow  was  taken  up  into  the 
second  story — was  entered,  and  graduated ! 

"  I  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  these  sports.  When  I 
had  time  I  spent  it  in  reading,  either  under  the  bishop's  direc 
tion  or  at  my  own  will.  I  used  to  meditate  a  good  deal  on  re 
ligious  topics ;  for  my  sentiments  of  religious  obligation  and 
reverence  and  responsibility,  were  profound." 

It  was  this  strong  and  deep  religious  sense  that  sometimes 
made  the  lad  run  some  risks  rather  than  swerve  from  the  truth. 
"  One  day,"  continues  Mr.  Chase,  "  a  frolicsome  and  mischievous 
boy  of  the  Sophomore  class,  just  before  the  tutor  came  in,  set 
fire  to  one  of  the  desks.  I  tried  to  prevent  it,  but  was  unable 
to  do  so.  It  was  burning  when  the  tutor  entered.  He  put  the 
fire  out,  and  at  once  directed  us  to  take  our  seats.  Mine  was  at 
the  upper  end  of  the  class.  He  began  with  the  one  at  the  foot. 

6  Sophomore  ,  did  you  set  fire  to  the  desk  ? '  i  No,  sir.' 

'  Do  you  know  who  did  ? '  <  No,  sir.'  He  reached  the  culprit : 
£  Did  you  set  fire  to  the  desk  ? '  Nothing  abashed,  his  answer 
was,  '  No,  sir.'  *  Do  you  know  who  did  ? '  i  No,  sir.'  I  saw  I 
had  to  pass  the  ordeal,  and  determined  to  tell  the  truth,  but  not 
to  give  the  name  of  my  class-mate,  which  I  thought  would  be 
about  as  mean  as  to  tell  a  lie  would  be  wrong.  The  question 
came  :  c  Sophomore  Chase,  did  you  set  fire  to  the  desk  ? '  '  No, 
sir.'  '  Do  you  know  who  did  ? '  <  Yes,  sir.'  <  Who  was  it  ? '  <  I 
shall  not  tell  you,  sir.'  He  said  no  more.  The  case  went  before 
the  faculty,  and  I  heard  was  the  subject  of  some  discussion ; 
but  it  was  not  thought  worth  while  to  prosecute  the  inquiry. 

"  The  sojourn  at  Cincinnati  was  not  long ;  not  quite  a  year. 
The  bishop  grieved  over  the  poverty  and  destitution  of  the 
diocese.  He  wanted,  above  all  things,  a  theological  seminary 
for  the  education  of  young  men  for  the  ministry ;  and  he  wanted 
a  college,  too,  if  he  could  establish  one.  He  determined  to  go 
to  England,  and  ask  for  help  to  the  obtainment  of  these  objects. 
He  resigned  the  presidency  of  the  college,  and  the  family  was 
broken  up.  I  accompanied  the  bishop  and  his  wife  and  their 
little  children  on  their  journey  eastward,  my  own  destination 
being  my  mother's  house." 


KETURNS  TO  KEENE.  17 

At  Kingston,  on  the  Hudson,  lie  separated  from  the  bishop, 
who  gave  the  lad  his  blessing  and  three  or  four  dollars  in  money. 
"  I  was  taken  down  to  the  river,"  says  Mr.  Chase,  "  and  was  put 
on  board  the  boat  for  Albany.  From  Albany  I  went  to  Troy, 
and  there  learning  the  way  to  Bennington  and  Brattleboro, 
started  to  make  across  the  mountains  homeward.  My  scanty 
purse  did  not  contain  enough  to  pay  stage-fare,  and  I  walked ; 
getting  an  occasional  ride  from  some  farmer  going  my  way.  It 
was  a  great  delight  when  I  came  within  view  of  Monadnock — 
some  thirty  or  forty  miles  off ;  to  see  the  grand  old  mountain 
lift  his  peaceful  head  heavenward,  and  seeming  to  look  toward 
me  with  a  sort  of  welcome.  I  reached  at  last  the  door  of  the 
yellow  house,  and  hurried  in,  where  my  mother  and  sisters,  sur 
prised  and  glad,  gave  me  a  most  affectionate  welcome.  How 
long  the  three  years  of  absence  now  seemed  ! " 
2 


(UNIVERSITY 


CHAPTEE    IY. 

UNDERTAKES  A  SCHOOL  AT  ROXBURY,  AND  FAILS — ROYALTON — 
DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE — SUCCESSFUL  AS  A  TEACHER  AT  READ 
ING TROUBLE  WITH  THE  FACULTY  OF  THE  COLLEGE GRAD 
UATES OUT  IN  THE  WORLD. 

BUT,  having  arrived  at  home,  writes  Mr.  Chase,  "  what  was 
now  to  be  done  ?  "  It  was  soon  determined  that  he  should 
continue  his  studies,  and  do  what  was  possible  toward  his  own 
support.  The  loving  and  zealous  mother  thought  she  could  spare 
enough  from  her  scanty  store,  added  to  whatever  sums  he 
could  earn  for  himself,  to  carry  him  through  college.  "  How 
little  I  appreciated  her  sacrifices,"  he  continues,  "  and  it  is  sad 
to  think — tears  fill  my  eyes  as  I  do  think — how  late  comes  true 
appreciation  of  them.  Alas,  how  inadequately,  until  the  be 
loved  mother  who  made  them  has  gone  beyond  the  reach  of  its 
manifestation ! " 

ISTot  long  after  his  return,  a  committee  from  an  adjoining 
town  (Roxbury)  came  into  Keene  to  engage  a  school-master. 
Application  was  made  to  Mr.  Chase,  and  he  was  engaged  at 
eight  dollars  a  month  "  and  board."  In  a  few  days  he  went  to 
his  district,  and  was  promptly  established  in  the  house  of  a 
neighboring  farmer  as  a  boarder.  He  took  charge  of  the  school 
with  much  apprehension,  but  with  coujage  and  will.  There 
was  a  goodly  number  of  pupils,  both  boys  and  girls  and  of  vari 
ous  ages ;  some  older  even  than  the  teacher.  They  were  more 
disposed  to  fun  and  play  than  to  study,  and  he  found  them  hard 
to  manage.  One  of  them,  senior  in  years  and  stronger  in  body 
than  Mr.  Chase  at  that  time,  took  great  liberties  and  incited  to 
insubordination ;  was  admonished  and  reproved,  and  then  pun- 


AT  DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE.  19 

ished.  He  subsided  into  obedience  for  the  time  being,  but 
doubtless  complained  to  his  parents ;  for  a  day  or  two'  afterward 
the  teacher  received  a  note  from  the  proper  authorities,  express 
ing  a  conviction  that  the  school  was  not  likely  to  be  useful 
under  his  government,  and  that  his  services  would  be  no  longer 
required.  He  had  been  in  charge  less  than  a  fortnight ! 

He  returned  to  his  mother's  house,  and  thence  went  to 
Royalton,  Yermont ;  there  to  continue  his  studies  preparatory 
to  his  entrance  into  Dartmouth  College  at  the  approaching  com 
mencement.  This  was  about  February,  1824.  He  was  com 
pelled  to  study  hard,  and  did  so.  Finally,  he  went  to  Hanover 
and  presented  himself  for  examination,  for  admission  into  the 
Junior  class.  He  found  that  his  apprehensions  of  a  severe 
inquisition  into  his  scholarship  were  not  realized ;  the  professors 
were  much  engaged ;  he  was  sent  from  one  to  another,  ques 
tioned  a  little,  and  was  then  admitted.  One  of  the  professors, 
among  other  questions,  asked  him,  "  Where  do  the  Hottentots 
live  ? "  The  young  man's  impulse  was  to  say,  "  In  Hanover  !  " 
but  prudence  came  to  his  rescue. 

During  the  winter  which  followed  his  first  term  at  Dart 
mouth,  he  again  undertook  the  management  of  a  New-England 
school ;  this  time  with  satisfactory  success.  It  was  at  Beading, 
Yermont ;  and  here,  as  at  Roxbury,  he  was  to  "  board  around." 
He  went  back  to  Hanover  with  his  earnings  in  his  purse,  and 
felt  proud  and  happy  that  he  had  accomplished  something  for 
himself. 

"  The  summer  of  1825,"  writes  Mr.  Chase,  "  was  marked  for 
me  by  an  event  not  unimportant  in  a  boy's  life.  Some  diffi 
culty  occurred  in  which  a  friend  of  mine,  George  Punchard,  a 
warm-hearted,  generous  fellow,  the  best  speaker,  though  not  the 
best  scholar  in  the  class,  was  involved.  I  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  affair  itself,  and  do  not  now  even  remember  what  it 
was.  But  I  took  Punchard's  part  warmly,  both  because  he  was ' 
pay  friend  and  because  I  thought  him  unjustly  censured.  The 
faculty  took  the  matter  in  hand ;  and  Punchard  was  suspended. 
I  immediately  waited  upon  the  president  to  remonstrate.  He 
received  me  kindly.  I  told  him  how  firmly  I  was  convinced 
that  Punchard  was  innocent  of  the  accusation  made  against  him. 
He  intimated  that  the  faculty  were  the  proper  judges  of  that 


20  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

question,  and  had  decided  it.  I  said,  '  Then  I  desire  to  leave 
the  college  also,  for  I  don't  wish  to  stay  where  a  student  is  lia 
ble  to  such  injustice.'  '  Had  I  consulted  my  mother  1 '  <  No, 
but  I  wanted  leave  of  absence  for  a  few  days,  that  I  might  do 
BO.'  £  You  cannot  have  it,'  said  the  president.  '  Then,  sir,'  said 
I  very  respectfully,  *  I  must  go  without  it.'  He  saw  my  deter 
mination,  and  I  think  really  respected  the  motive  which  prompt 
ed  it.  At  any  rate,  he  at  last  consented  to  the  leave.  And  Pun- 
chard  and  I  left  the  Plain,  as  the  site  of  the  institution  was 
called,  together.  It  was  with  great  satisfaction  and  a  sort  of 
self -approval  that  I  took  my  seat  behind  him  on  the  '  one-horse 
chaise,'  and  bade  good-by  to  those  of  my  class-mates  who  wit 
nessed  our  departure." 

"  We  went  directly  to  Keene.  There  Punchard  left  me,  and 
went  to  Salem,  where  his  parents  resided.  My  mother  wel 
comed  me.  She  did  not  approve,  but  did  not  censure  harshly. 
I  could  not  help  f  eeling  that  I  had  done  right  in  standing  by  my 
friend,  but  I  was  sorry  I  had  been  obliged  to  leave  college. 

"  Fortunately,  Punchard's  suspension  was  soon  ended,  per 
haps  was  shortened  by  the  faculty,  and  we  both  returned,  feeling 
ourselves  somewhat  of  heroes. 

"  Nothing  of  much  interest  occurred  during  the  remainder 
of  my  college-life.  Commencement  came,  and  from  juniors  we 
became  seniors.  According  to  usage,  the  foremost  third  of  the 
class  were  admitted  into  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society.  Twelve 
or  thirteen,  I  think,  were  fortunate  enough  to  get  in,  I  among 
them,  almost  if  not  quite  the  hindermost,  for  I  had  not  been 
so  fortunate  as  to  find  any  one  to  be  my  mentor  and  guide, 
and  did  not  properly  appreciate  or  improve  the  opportunities  I 
enjoyed. 

"  Commencement  approached,  when  we  were  to  receive  our 
diplomas,  and,  taking  leave  of  Alma  Mater,  were  to  go  forth  to 
tiy  the  world.  In  the  assignments  of  the  commencement  exer 
cises,  I  ranked  eight — not  discreditably  low,  nor  yet  creditably 
high.  The  faculty  offered  me,  for  my  part,  a  poem  or  an  ora 
tion.  I  attempted  a  poem,  but  could  not  satisfy  my  own  taste, 
and  abandoned  the  effort.  I  then  prepared  an  oration  on '  Liter 
ary  Curiosity.'  It  was  meagre  enough,  but  when  my  turn 
came  to  speak,  and  the  president,  seated  in  state,  with  his  black 


LEAVES  HOME  FOR  THE  SOUTH.  21 

academic  cap  on  his  head  and  a  black-silk  robe  enveloping  his 
person,  uttered  the  awful  words,  '  Proximus  ascendat ;  oratio 
per  Salmon  P.  Chase,'  I  went  forward  with  great  assurance  that 
I  was  to  make  a  very  decided  impression ;  and  I  dare  say  I  did, 
but  of  a  different  sort  from  that  I  anticipated.  All  I  remember 
is,  that  I  got  through. 

"  It  was  now  my  purpose  to  go  South,  and  teach  school  for 
a  time,  and  then  pursue  whatever  profession  might  appear  to 
me  the  best.  I  had  not  quite  relinquished  the  idea  of  becom 
ing  a  clergyman,  but  greatly  doubted  whether  I  had  any  right 
to  take  upon  myself  the  duties  of  so  sacred  an  office." 

The  interval  between  the  close  of  his  student-life  and  his 
departure  for  the  South,  was  spent  in  visiting  among  his  rela 
tives  and  friends,  chiefly  with  his  mother  and  sister  at  Hopkin- 
ton.  "  But  time  and  the  hour  runs  through  the  longest  day," 
and  the  morning  of  separation  at  last  arrived.  "My  dear 
mother,"  he  says,  "  gave  me  the  little  money  she  could  provide 
rather  than  spare.  It  was  yet  dark  when  I  arose  and  partook 
of  the  early  breakfast  prepared  for  me,  and  with  my  mother's 
blessing,  and  a  sad  yet  hopeful  heart,  I  left  home  for — the 
world.  A  short  ride  of  ten  or  twelve  miles  brought  me  to 
Windsor,  still  before  day;  at  that  place  I  took  the  stage. 
Again  I  was  climbing  the  Green  Mountains;  again  I  passed 
through  Albany — now,  however,  my  face  southward  instead  of 
to  the  west ;  down  the  Hudson  to  New  York,  and  thence  on 
ward  to  Philadelphia,  where  I  met  my  uncle,  the  bishop,  who 
had  returned  from  a  successful  visit  in  England,  and  was  now 
busily  engaged  in  building  up  Kenyon  College."  After  a  short 
stay  with  the  bishop,  he  went  to  Baltimore,  where,  however,  he 
remained  but  a  day  or  two,  and  then  proceeded  to  Frederick 
City,  in  which  place  he  hoped  to  establish  himself  in  a  school. 


CHAPTEE    Y. 

FREDERICK   CITY,   MARYLAND ON   TO  WASHINGTON — ADVERTISES   A 

SELECT  CLASSICAL  SCHOOL — NO  RESULTS TRIES  FOE  A  CLERK 
SHIP — MR.  AND  MRS.  PLUMLEY — MR.  PLUMLEY  GIVES  UP  HIS 

SCHOOL SUCCESS "  THE    SISTERS  " STUDENT    IN    WILLIAM 

WTRT'S  OFFICE — JOHN  RANDOLPH — WILLIAM  WIRT — ADMISSION 
TO  THE  BAR GOES  WEST. 

BUT  hope  of  success  at  Frederick  fled  after  a  day  or  two 
spent  in  that  city,  and  Mr.  Chase  proceeded  at  once  to 
"Washington.  His  little  store  of  money  was  melting  rapidly 
away  under  continuous  demands  for  traveling  and  other  ex 
penses,  and  he  found  himself,  immediately  upon  his  arrival  in 
the  capital — about  the  first  of  December,  1826 — under  the  ne 
cessity  of  finding  prompt  employment.  "  How  well  I  remem 
ber,"  he  writes,  "  the  earnest  prayer  which  went  up  from  my 
heart  that  God  would  give  me  work  to  do,  and  success  in  doing 
it ! "  He  had  letters  to  several  persons  in  the  city,  particularly 
to  the  Rev.  Drs.  Hawley  and  Allen,  the  former  Rector  of  St. 
John's  Episcopal  Church.  Both  these  gentlemen  were  inter 
ested  in  him,  but  were  able  to  do  no  more  than  bring  him  to  the 
favorable  acquaintance  of  their  friends.  Then  he  resolved  upon 
action  for  himself.  On  the  morning  of  the  23d  of  December, 
1826,  the  National  Intelligencer  contained  an  advertisement 
over  the  signature  of  Salmon  P.  Chase,  which  announced  that 
on  the  second  Monday  of  the  following  January,  he  would  open, 
in  the  western  part  of  the  city,  a  select  classical  school,  the  spe 
cial  advantages  of  which  were  set  forth  with  some  minuteness ; 


EAKLY  EXPERIENCES  AT  WASHINGTON.  23 

all  depending  more  or  less,  however,  upon  this  particular  feat- 
-Qj-e — that  the  number  of  his  pupils  should  not  exceed  twenty. 

There  was  no  response ;  days  went  painfully  and  anxiously 
by,  and  his  money  was  nearly  exhausted,  and  so,  too,  were  his 
hopes  of  the  classical  school.  Only  a  single  gleam  of  success  and 
happiness  broke  upon  him ;  a  visitor  was  announced,  French  by 
birth  and  Bonfils  by  name,  who  sought  a  school  for  his  son. 
The  interview  was  satisfactory  on  both  sides,  ending  in  an  en 
gagement  between  them;  and  Mr.  Chase,  with  a  proud  and 
gratified  heart,  inscribed  upon  his  register  the  name  of  his  first 
pupil,  Columbus  Bonfils.  But  alas !  Columbus  Bonfils  long  re 
mained  both  first  and  last,  the  alpha  and  omega  of  his  hopes. 

At  length  he  resolved  upon  another  expedient.  He  had 
heard  of  clerkships  in  the  Executive  Departments,  and  he  could 
see  no  good  reason  why  he  might  not  procure  one ;  and  while 
performing  its  duties,  pursue  also  the  study  of  a  profession. 
This  did  not  seem  to  him  a  very  difficult  undertaking,  seeing 
that  his  uncle  Dudley,  the  Senator,  was  a  known  friend  and  sup 
porter  of  Mr.  Adams's  Administration.  Accordingly  he  went 
to  the  Senator's  lodgings,  told  the  story  of  his  efforts  to  procure 
a  school,  how  desperate  the  expectation  of  scholars  seemed,  and 
his  project  for  a  clerkship ;  then  asked  his  uncle's  help.  The 
Senator's  response  was  not  likely  to  be  forgotten,  and  never  was 
forgotten.  "  I  once  procured  an  office  for  a  nephew  of  mine," 
he  said,  "  and  he  was  ruined  by  it.  I  then  determined  I  never 
would  ask  for  another.  I  will  lend  you  fifty  cents  with  which 
to  buy  a  spade ;  but  I  cannot  help  you  to  a 'clerkship."  The 
young  man  departed  from  his  uncle's  presence  both  sadder  and 
wiser  than  when  he  entered  it. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Hawley  being,  however,  not  only  a  kind- 
hearted  gentleman,  but  also  a  true  friend,  was  watchful  of  op 
portunity  to  render  the  young  man  real  service ;  and  one  day 
gave  him  a  note  to  Mr.  A.  R.  Plumley,  a  teacher  of  excellent 
repute  in  the  city,  who  had  a  large  school  of  both  boys  and 
girls ;  rather  too  large,  indeed,  for  entirely  successful  adminis 
tration.  "  I  know  it  will  afford  you  pleasure,"  wrote  Dr.  Hawley, 
"  to  aid  a  young  man  of  talents  and  piety  in  obtaining  a  school 
where  his  services  as  a  teacher  may  defray  his  current  expenses 
while  reading  law."  With  this  note  Mr.  Chase  one  morning 


24  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

presented  himself  at  Mr.  Plumley' s  house,  and  found  that  gen 
tleman  and  Mrs.  Plumley  at  home.  He  was  received  with  great 
courtesy  and  kindness  by  both  these  excellent  persons,  though  at 
the  beginning  of  the  interview  Mr.  Plumley  gave  him  no  en 
couragement.  But  not  cast  down,  notwithstanding  his  disap 
pointment — for  he  had  gone  to  Mr.  Plumley  filled  with  hope, 
and  was  disappointed — the  young  man  said,  simply,  "  "Well,  I 
am  resolved  I  will  have  a  school,"  and  took  his  leave. 

"  He  will  make  his  mark  in  the  world,"  said  Mrs.  Plumley, 
after  he  was  gone,  divining,  with  the  instinctive  sagacity  of  wo 
man,  the  superior  qualities  of  their  visitor. 

Influenced  a  good  deal  by  his  wife's  judgment,  and  a  good 
deal  by  other  considerations — not  the  least  of  them  being  a  gener 
ous  willingness  to  do  a  friendly  act — Mr.  Plumley  determined  to 
resign  his  boys'  department,  and  relinquished  it  accordingly  into 
the  hands  of  Mr.  Chase.  It  contained  eighteen  or  twenty  pu 
pils,  and  these,  with  Columbus  Bonfils,  formed  the  first  charge 
undertaken  by  Mr.  Chase  in  his  "  Select  Classical  Seminary." 

"  Almost  every  moment  of  my  time,"  he  also  wrote  to  L.  H. 
on  the  2d  of  February,  1827,  "is  occupied.  The  printed  page 
of  the  sheet  upon  which  this  letter  is  written  will  inform  you 
of  the  name  of  my  school  and  the  range  of  studies.1  I  have 
about  twenty  pupils  (if  I  could  be  assured  of  the  constant  at 
tendance  of  sixteen,  I  should  rest  satisfied),  at  various  prices, 
from  five  to  twelve  and  a  half  dollars  per  quarter.  I  shall,  in 
the  spring,  however,  establish  a  uniform  price,  with  only  two  or 
three  exceptions.*  My  school  is  as  pleasant  a  one  as  I  could  ex 
pect  under  the  circumstances,  and  I  hope  will  become  profitable 
next  year."  And  not  long  after,  he  writes  again :  "  I  am  com 
pelled  to  study  and  read  a  good  deal  to  keep  ahead  of  my  class, 
which  has  in  it  a  number  of  bright,  ambitious  boys ; a  among 

1  The  studies  pursued  at  Mr.  Chase's  "  Select  Classical  Seminary  "  were :  The 
Latin  and  Greek  Languages ;  Murray's  English  Grammar ;  Ancient  and  Modern 
Geography ;  Ancient  and  Modern  History ;  Mathematics  ;  Natural  Philosophy ;  In 
tellectual  Philosophy ;  Rhetoric ;  Moral  Philosophy  ;  Natural  Theology ;  and  the 
Evidences  of  Christianity.  Mr.  Chase  pledged  himself  also  to  give  special  attention 
to  the  moral  training  of  his  pupils,  and  did  it. 

8  "  There  was  one  lad  among  my  pupils  at  this  time,"  says  Mr.  Chase,  "  whom  I 
regarded  as  the  most  promising  of  my  school ;  but  unfortunately  he  became,  after 
he  left,  a  clerk  in  the  Treasury,  and  I  found  him  in  the  same  department  when  I 
took  charge  of  it ! " 


HABITS  OF  LIFE  AND  STUDY.  25 

them,  sons  of  Mr.  Clay,  "William  Wirt,  Mr.  Southard,  General 
Bernard,"  and  other  distinguished  persons. 

His  habits  of  life  and  study  were  characteristic.  He  arose 
between  five  and  six  in  the  morning — generally  nearer  the  former 
than  the  latter  hour — and  studied  or  occupied  himself  with  his 
pen  until  breakfast,  at  half -past  seven.  He  then  went  to  his 
school-room,  and  remained  there  four  hours  ;  then  followed  an 
hour  of  intermission,  after  which  school-services  were  resumed, 
and  continued  until  three  o'clock,  when  the  pupils  were  dis 
missed.  Then  dinner,  and  at  four  o'clock  he  was  ready  to  at 
tend  a  class  of  young  ladies  (he  had  a  small  class  in  the  lighter 
branches),  with  whom  he  remained  three  hours.  From  seven 
o'clock  in  the  evening  he  was  at  leisure  to  pursue  his  own  in 
clinations,  and  these  led  him,  in  the  main,  to  his  pen 1  and  his 

1  Among  his  literary  exercises  of  this  period  was  the  short  poem  called  "  The 
Sisters,"  written  November,  1828,  and  addressed  to  Elizabeth  and  Catharine  Wirt, 
daughters  of  the  Attorney-General,  printed  at  first  for  private  circulation,  and  then 
finding  its  way  into  the  newspapers  : 

"  It  was  an  eve  of  summer.     The  bright  sun, 
With  all  his  flood  of  glory,  like  a  king 
With  pomp  of  unfurled  banners,  had  gone  down. 
A  single  cloud  in  which  all  rays  that  light 
The  diamond,  opal,  or  the  chrysolite, 
Met  in  their  mingled  brightness,  hung  above 
The  place  of  his  departure.     Over  that 
Rose  pile  on  pile  of  gorgeous  clouds,  a  wall 
With  tower  and  battlement,  that  seemed  to  rise 
Magnificently  grand,  as  if  to  mock 
The  show  of  glory  earth  sometimes  puts  on. 
The  zephyrs  were  abroad  among  the  flowers, 
Filling  the  air  with  fragrance,  while  around, 
From  silver  rills  and  the  breezy  trees, 
And  from  earth's  thousand  founts  of  harmony, 
Came  gushes  of  sweet  sound.     On  such  an  eve 
I  saw,  uppn  the  bank  of  a  small  stream, 
Whose  waters  glowed  with  the  rich,  golden  light, 
That,  like  a  mantle  wrought  by  angel-hands, 
Covered  the  world  with  beauty,  two,  who  seemed 
Rather  the  habitants  of  some  pure  star 
Than  dwellers  of  this  earth.     They  were  both  young 
And  lovely,  but  unlike  ;  as  two  sweet  flowers 
Are  sometimes  seen,  both  exquisitely  fair, 
Though  clothed  with  different  hues.     The  one  went  by 
With  a  light,  fawn-like  step,  that  scarcely  crushed 
The  springing  flower  beneath  it.     Life  had  been 
To  her  a  poet's  dream,  where  all  things  bright 
And  beautiful  concentrated,  like  the  rays 
That  mingling  form  the  sunbeam,  and  tne  earth 
Was  lovely  still,  as  in  the  olden  time, 
When,  at  this  hour,  celestial  spirits  came 


26  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

books — for  lie  wrote  and  studied  incessantly.  He  added  some 
what  to  his  income  by  literary  labor ;  so  that,  upon  the  whole, 
he  was  prosperous  and  contented,  although  the  drudgery  of  mere 
teaching  was  extremely  distasteful. 

In  September,  1827,  he  became  a  student-at-law  in  the  office 
of  William  "Wirt,  at  that  time  Attorney-General  of  the  United 
States  and  in  the  splendid  maturity  of  his  powers,  but  too  con- 

To  admire  her  virgin  beauties,  and  adore 

The  great  Creator,  manifested  best 

By  works  that  He  hath  wrought.     Her  countenance 

Was  radiant  with  joy,  though  shaded  oft 

By  her  dark  tresses,  as  the  wanton  breeze 

Played  sportively  among  her  locks  of  jet 

She  was  not  very  beautiful ;  and  yet 

There  was  that  in  her  dark,  bright,  joyous  eyes, 

And  in  the  expression  of  her  speaking  face, 

Where,  amid  the  graces,  dwelt  perpetual  smiles, 

As  sunshine  dwells  upon  the  summer  wave, 

Changing  forever,  yet  forever  bright, 

With  the  sweet  frankness  of  confiding  youth, 

And  the  pure  light  that  evermore  pours  out 

From  the  mind's  fountain,  that  demanded  more 

Than  the  cold  name  of  beauty,  which  may  be 

The  attribute  of  beings  whom  no  ray 

Of  intellect  illumines  and  no  charm 

Of  loveliness  invests.     The  other's  step 

Was  not  so  buoyant,  and  her  eye  had  less 

Of  mirth  and  gladness  in  it,  and  her  cheek 

Was  sometimes  paler ;  but,  when  gentle  airs 

Parted  the  tresses  that  hung  o'er  her  brow, 

It  was  as  when  light  suddenly  breaks  forth 

From  rifted  clouds  in  April.     She  was  one 

For  whom  a  life  were  a  small  sacrifice, 

Ay,  to  be  deemed  as  nothing !    Pensive  grace 

Was  in  *her  every  motion,  and  her  look 

Had  something  sacred  in  it,  that  declared 

The  pure  and  guileless  spirit  that  dwelt  within. 

Thou  lovely  one !     May  life  still  be  for  thee 

A  peaceful  voyage  o'er  a  summer  sea, 

By  gentle  gales  attended  ;  and  at  length, 

Purified  wholly  from  the  primal  taint, 

That  still  attends  earth's  loveliest,  enter  thou 

The  port  of  endless  peace  ! 

They  passed  away ; 

Such  visions  never  last ;  and,  ray  by  ray, 
From  earth  and  sky,  and  from  the  sparkling  wave, 
The  glory  all  departed.     Even  so — 
I  thought,  and  with  the  thought  a  heavy  sigh 
Came  from  my  inmost  heart — must  fade  away 
All  that  the  earth  of  the  beautiful  inherits. 
And  so  must  these  bright  creatures  pass  from  earth, 
Leaving  behind,  to  tell  that  they  have  been, 
Naught  but  the  memory  of  their  loveliness, 
Like  fragrance  lingering  still  around  the  spot, 
Where  late  the  rose  was  blooming ! " 


ANTISLAVERY  PETITION  OF  1828.  27 

stantly  and  extensively  engaged  in  public  and  private  profes 
sional  labors  to  give  much  attention  to  the  young  gentlemen 
under  his  tuition  ;  so  that  Mr.  Chase  did  not  derive  much  bene 
fit  from  the  great  legal  knowledge  and  abilities  of  his  distin 
guished  preceptor.  But  he  had  the  advantage  of  association 
with  the  lawyers  and  law-students  of  the  city ;  sometimes  at 
tended  the  courts,  and  occasionally — not  at  all  frequently,  how 
ever — went  into  the  Senate  or  House  of  Representatives ;  became 
an  active  and  useful  member  of  the  Blackstone  Club — at  one 
time  its  president — and  contributed  to  its  exercises  some  essays 
on  legal  topics  which  illustrated  the  thoroughness  of  his  study 
and  the  thoughtfulness  of  his  mind. 

Of  course  he  took  an  interest  in  the  current  politics,  and  was 
violently  anti-Jackson,  not  so  much  from  a  well-considered  judg 
ment  of  his  own  as  from  family  tradition ;  his  father  having 
been  rather  a  fierce  Federalist,  while  his  uncle  Dudley,  for 
merly  a  supporter  of  Madison,  was  now  arrayed  on  the  Adams 
side.  In  1828  Mr.  Chase  was  one  of  those  who  drew  up  a  peti 
tion  to  Congress  praying  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  and  the 
slave-trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  "What  it  was  that  occa 
sioned  this  petition  it  is  difficult  to  say ;  probably  it  grew  out  of 
the  painful  case  of  Gilbert  Horton,  a  free  colored  citizen  of  New 
York,  who,  being  on  business  at  "Washington,  was  seized  and  im 
prisoned  on  suspicion  of  being  a  slave.  This  occurrence  (in 
1827)  led  to  some  important  discussion  in  Congress  on  the  sub 
ject  of  slavery  in  the  District,  and  probably  to  the  petition  re 
ferred  to.  At  any  rate  his  connection  with  it  was  his  first  public 
political  act. 

During  this  period  of  his  Washington  life  he  expressed  him 
self  with  the  natural  ardor  of  impetuous  young  manhood ;  and, 
though  he  had  political  sympathies,  it  cannot  be  said  that  he  had 
as  yet  any  solid  political  opinions.  These  he  formed  in  future 
years,  and  in  a  direction  that  did  not  peculiarly  fit  him  for  a 
very  close  association  with  either  of  the  political  parties  of  that 
day. 

However,  his  ideas  of  the  order  and  dignity  of  legislative 
action  were  a  good  deal  shocked  by  what  .he  saw  in  Congress. 
"  There  is  little  pleasure  to  be  derived  from  attendance  there," 
he  said,  in  a  letter  to  L.  H.,  in  April,  1828,  "  and  less  profit.  It 


28  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

would  astonish  you  to  see  the  indifference  manifested,  while  a 
member,  addresses  the  House,  by  his  brother  members.  One  is 
stretched  at  full  length  upon  a  sofa,  a  handkerchief  spread  over 
his  face  as  if  endeavoring  to  sleep ;  another  is  marching  to  and 
fro  behind  the  Speaker's  chair ;  here  perhaps  a  little  knot  of 
politicians  may  be  discovered  in  earnest  conversation  ;  there 
some  members  are  writing  letters  or  reading  newspapers ;  some 
are  stupidly  gazing  upon  the  orator,  and  few  listening  with  any 
expectation  of  profit  or  instruction  in  his  words.  You  may  go 
to  Congress  twenty  times  in  a  day,  and  you  will  witness  just 
such  a  scene  as  this."  Of  public  men  he  wrote  with  great  free 
dom,  and  for  some  had  feelings  of  profound  aversion.  His  de 
scription  of  John  Randolph  is  sufficiently  characteristic :  "  The 
House  now  presents,"  he  wrote  to  Charles  Dexter  Cleveland,  in 
February,  1828,  "  nearly  the  same  scene  as  the  Senate  presented 
two  years  ago,  as  if  John  Randolph  carried  with  him  a  pestilen 
tial  influence  corrupting  every  thing  it  touches.  It  is  strange 
that  this  man  is  so  popular  in  his  State,  but  more  strange  that  he 
is  allowed  to  exercise  his  fantastic  humors  in  the  House  without 
check  and  almost  without  rebuke — a  man  who  '  has  been  every 
thing  by  starts  and  nothing  long ; '  who  opposed  Jefferson,  Mad 
ison,  and  Monroe ;  who  is  an  aristocrat  at  heart  and  disordered 
in  intellect ;  the  scorn  of  the  wise,  the  laughing-stock  of  the  gay, 
and  the  abhorrence  of  the  good."  He  had  no  hero  save  Mr. 
"Wirt ;  for  that  gentleman  he  formed  a  deep  and  lasting  attach 
ment,  loving  him  as  well  for  the  warm  qualities  of  his  heart  as 
for  the  vigor  and  splendor  of  his  intellect.  When  in  1829,  Mr. 
Wirt'  wrote  him  a  letter  predicting  for  him  future  usefulness 
and  distinction,  and  proffering  advice  and  friendship,  the  young 
man  gratefully  responded :  "  God  prospering  my  exertions,  I  will 
imitate  your  example.  There  is  something  to  me  peculiarly 
pleasing  in  the  character  of  one  who,  having  himself  trod  the 
paths  of  life  successfully  under  the  smiles  of  indulgent  Heaven, 
turns  round  to  cheer  and  encourage  the  young  and  inexperienced 
traveler.  I  admire  Cicero  in  the  forum,  wielding  the  burnished 
weapons  of  rhetoric;  I  more  than  admire  him  when,  in  the 
midst  of  a  trembling  and  doubtful  senate,  he  rises — in  the  true 
faith  of  Socrates,  that  no  evil  can  happen  to  a  good  man — to  con 
front  the  audacious  Catiline ;  I  venerate  him  as  the  father  of  his 


PREPARES  FOR  THE  BAR,  29 

country,  when  the  traitor  is  driven  from  the  walls  and  the  nas 
cent  conspiracy  is  crushed ;  T)ut  I  love  him  when  I  behold  him 
in  the  villa  of  Lucullus,  interesting  himself  in  the  education 
and  prospects  of  its  young  owner."  And  he  felt  all  and  more 
than  he  said.  In  the  delightful  family  of  Mr.  Wirt,  and  among 
the  friends  of  the  family,  Mr.  Chase  found  all  of  social  life  that 
his  heart  desired,  and  was  happy  in  it.  "  I  became  slightly  ac 
quainted  with  a  number  of  prominent  characters,"  he  writes  to 
Mr.  Trowbridge,  "but  was  too  diffident  to  push  myself  into 
notice ;  possibly  too  proud  to  ask  for  recognition,  and  preferring 
to  wait  for  it;  too  indifferent  also — a  more  serious  fault — to 
what  transpired  around  me  to  take  much  pains  to  acquaint  my 
self  with  the  histories  and  men  of  the  hour.  I  made  much  too 
little  use  of  the  advantages  which  a  residence  in  Washington  at 
that  period  afforded.  I  was  poor  and  sensitive ;  a  young  teacher, 
needing  myself  to  be  taught  and  guided." 

But  the  time  came  when  the  permanent  business  of  life  was 
to  begin.  He  had  continued  his  occupation  as  a  teacher  for 
nearly  three  years,  from  February,  1827,  until  near  the  end  of 
October,  1829,  when  he  relinquished  it  and  devoted  himself  with 
assiduity  to  preparing  for  examination  preliminary  to  admission 
to  the  bar.  This  examination  took  place  on  the  21st  of  Decem 
ber  following.  "  The  most  distinguished  men  in  the  legal  pro 
fession,"  says  Mr.  Chase  in  one  of  his  "  personal  memoranda," 
"  do  not  always  give  early  promise  of  future  eminence.  I  have 
never  attained  much  professional  distinction,  and  have  not  wholly 
deserved  what  I  have  attained.  My  reading  for  the  bar  had  not 
been  diligent  or  very  extensive.  I  had  looked  through  Burla- 
maqui  at  college.  After  I  went  to  Washington,  in  1826,  and 
had  opened  my  school  in  the  spring  of  1827, 1  received  as  pupils 
the  sons  of  William  Wirt,  and  was  received  by  him  as  a  student- 
at-law.  It  may  well  be  believed  that  between  the  cares  of  a 
school  and  other  duties,  and  the  attractions  of  society  and  espe 
cially  of  the  delightful  family  circle  of  Mr.  Wirt — where  I  was 
ever  welcomed  with  cordial  kindness — I  made  no  great  progress 
in  legal  lore.  Mr.  Wirt  never  examined  me.  Only  once  did  he 
put  a  question  to  me  about  my  studies.  He  asked  me  one  day 
while  I  was  reading  Blackstone  if  I  understood  him.  I  answered 
confidently,  '  Yes.'  But  I  was  greatly  mistaken,  as  I  afterward 


30  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

found.  Tlie  knowledge  obtained  by  bare  reading  is  of  very  lit 
tle  value.  Books  must  be  meditated  and  talked  to  be  under 
stood  and  converted  into  mental  aliment. 

"I  forget  what  books  I  read  besides  * Blackstone's  Com 
mentaries  ; '  '  Cruise's  Digest/  I  think  [he  read  c  Rutherf  orth's 
Institutes,'  also],  and  perhaps  some  others — 'Dalrymple  on 
Feudal  Law,'  I  remember  as  one,  but  the  catalogue  was  very 
short. 

"  Yery  seldom,  I  imagine,  has  any  candidate  for  admission  to 
the  bar  presented  himself  for  examination  with  a  slenderer  stock 
of  learning.  I  was  examined  in  open  court.  The  venerable  and 
excellent  Justice  Cranch  put  the  questions.  I  answered  as  well 
as  I  was  able — how  well  or  how  ill  I  cannot  say — but  certainly, 
I  think,  not  very  well.  Finally,  the  Judge  asked  me  how  long  I 
had  studied.  I  replied  that,  including  the  time  employed  in 
reading  in  college  and  the  scraps  devoted  to  legal  reading  before 
I  regularly  commenced  the  study,  and  the  time  since,  I  thought 
three  years  might  be  made  up.  The  Judge  smiled  and  said, 
'  We  think,  Mr.  Chase,  that  you  must  study  another  year  and 
present  yourself  again  for  examination.'  '  Please  your  honors,' 
said  I  deprecatingly,  c  I  have  made  all  my  arrangements  to  go  to 
the  "Western  country  and  practise  law.'  The  kind  Judge  yielded 
to  this  appeal,  and  turning  to  the  clerk  said,  '  Swear  in  Mr. 
Chase.'  Perhaps  he  would  have  been  less  facile  if  he  had  not 
known  me  personally  and  very  well." 

It  is  important  here  to  avoid  misconception.  At  the  time  of 
Mr.  Chase's  examination  the  law  of  Maryland  made  three  years' 
study  an  essential  prerequisite  to  admission  to  the  bar  of  the 
State,  and  the  objection  of  Justice  Cranch  went,  not  to  want  of 
sufficiently  extensive  and  accurate  legal  learning  on  the  part  of 
Mr.  Chase — f or,  in  point  of  fact,  he  had  passed  an  unusually 
creditable  examination — but  to  a  fear  that  he  had  not  met  the 
demands  of  the  statute  in  respect  of  the  three  years'  'time  re 
quired  to  be  devoted  to  study. 

Having  been  admitted,  however,  Mr.  Chase  prepared  for  his 
departure  from  the  capital.  He  had  entertained  some  thoughts 
of  establishing  himself  at  Baltimore ;  but  had  ultimately  deter 
mined  upon  the  "West.  "  I  would  rather  be  first,"  he  wrote  to 
his  friend  Cleveland — "I  would  rather  be  first  twenty  years 


BEGINS  LIFE  AT  CINCINNATI.  31 

hence  at  Cincinnati  than  at  Baltimore.  As  I  have  ever  been 
first  at  school  and  college  (except  at  Dartmouth,  where  I  was 
much  too  idle),  I  shall  ever  strive  to  be  first  wherever  I  may  be, 
let  what  success  will  attend  the  effort^  It  can  do  no  harm  to 
try,  and  ( fearing  the  attempt,'  we  often  fail  of  the  attainment 
which  might  easily  attend  us."  But  his  ambition  to  be  first 
among  his  fellows  was  tempered  by  the  promptings  of  his  con 
science  :  "  I  feel,"  he  wrote  to  L.  H.,  shortly  after  his  arrival  in 
Cincinnati,  "  that  the  fever  of  life  brings  with  it  only  the  joys 
of  delirium  to  those  who  place  their  chief  happiness  in  the 
achievement  of  a  lofty  and  distinguished  fame.  May  God  en 
able  me  to  be  content  with  the  consciousness  of  faithfully  dis 
charging  all  my  duties,  and  deliver  me  from  a  too  eager  thirst 
for  the  applause  and  favor  of  men ! " 

He  arrived  in  Cincinnati  in  March,  1830;  was  admitted  to 
the  bar  of  Ohio  in  the  following  June,  and  at  once  entered — 
with  ardor  and  hope — upon  the  active  work  of  a  lawyer's  life. 


CHAPTEE    VI. 

BEGINS  LIFE  AS   A  LAWYER  AT  CINCINNATI SPECULATION  IN  1836 

— THE    LYCEUM    AND    SOME    LITERARY   WORK EULOGY   UPON 

BROUGHAM — CHASED     STATUTES COMMENDATIONS     OF     CHAN 
CELLOR   KENT  AND  JUSTICE   STORY. 

IT  is  not  possible,  within  the  assigned  limits  of  this  volume, 
to  give  any  extended  account  of  Mr.  Chase's  labors  in  his 
profession,  except  in  so  far  as  those  labors  had  an  influence  upon 
the  political  sentiment  and  public  affairs  of  the  country.  It  is 
perhaps  enough  to  say,  concerning  them,  that  they  were  dis 
tinguished  by  the  vigor,  the  careful  industry,  and  the  con 
scientiousness,  which  marked  all  his  work.1  These  elements  of 

1  Mr.  Chase  to  his  Brother -,  Edwin  L  Chase. 

"  CnronrNATi,  Septemb&r  17, 1880. 

"  MY  DEAR  BROTHER  :  Your  last  letter  was  received  this  evening,  and  I  only  an- 
ticipate  my  previous  intention  a  day  or  two  by  answering  it  immediately.  I  sympa- 
pathize  with  you  in  your  unaccountable  depression  of  spirits.  I  am  frequently 
visited  with  such  feelings ;  which  overcome  me  like  a  summer's  cloud,  but,  like  a 
Bummer's  cloud,  they  are  generally  very  transient,  passing  away  with  the  occasion 
that  gave  birth  to  them.  The  best  specific  I  know  of  against  them  is  constant  em 
ployment  ;  the  mind  must  be  kept  in  constant  action. 

"  I  wish,  in  answer  to  your  questions,  I  could  tell  you  of  a  long  list  of  suits  in 
court,  and  crowding  clients,  and  other  agreeable  things  of  that  nature.  But  you 
must  remember  I  have  had  an  office  only  from  the  beginning  of  the  month,  and  that 
here — where  the  members  of  the  bar  are  so  numerous,  and  business  generally  has 
formed  a  channel  for  itself — it  is  idle  for  a  young  man  to  expect  much  business  at 
the  start.  I  thought,  and  still  think,  that  if  I  can  make  ten  dollars  in  the  first  three 
months,  twenty  in  the  next  three,  forty  hi  the  next  three,  and  eighty  in  the  next, 
I  shall  do  well.  If  I  shall  be  able  in  the  second  year  to  pay  my  own  expenses,  and 
the  third  to  make  as  much  more  than  my  expenses  as  in  the  first  year  I  fall  short, 
I  shall  be  fully  satisfied.  If  this  be  my  lot,  I  shall,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  be 
established  in  my  profession,  out  of  debt,  with  a  fair  income,  and  able,  and  I  trust 
willing,  to  aid  others  as  I  have  myself  felt  the  need  of  aid.  After  all,  however, 


SUCCESS  AND  EMBARRASSMENT.  33 

character  rapidly  brought  him  into  public  notice ;  he  formed 
excellent  professional  connections,  and  his  business  grew  to  be 
large  and  profitable,  and  included  many  important  causes.  With 
extensive  practice  came,  of  course,  corresponding  money  re 
wards  ;  and  if  he  did  not  arrive  at  affluence,  he  did,  at  an  early 
period  of  his  life,  reach  a  condition  of  moderate  fortune.  In 
1837  he  was  seized  with  the  prevailing  speculative  fever,  and 
became  somewhat  involved.  "  I  have  no  complaint  to  make 
about  hard  times,"  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Cleveland,  "  and  have 
a  poor  opinion  of  this  way  of  evading  self -censure  by  ascribing 
the  consequences  of  our  own  folly  and  wrong-doing  to  abstrac 
tions.  I  recognize,  in  the  embarrassments  which  I  share,  the 
necessary  results  of  a  system  1  once  approved  and  engaged  in, 
rather  hoping  than  believing  it  to  be  right.  I  intend,  with 
God's  blessing,  to  pay  the  debts  I  owe  as  speedily  as  possible, 
and  I  trust  I  never  again  shall  be  tempted  into  speculation  of 
any  sort " — a  resolution  from  which,  in  after-life,  he  never  de 
parted.1  But  this  temporary  engagement  in  business,  external 
to  his  profession,  did  not  for  a  moment  swerve  him  from  the 
utmost  application  to  the  interests  of  his  clients.  He  labored 
incessantly,  and  carried  his  application  to  that  degree,  that  in 
the  mid-winter  of  1836  and  1837,  he  suffered  from  a  protracted 
and  dangerous  sickness.  But  work,  became  the  natural  temper 
and  habit  of  his  mind,  because  he  believed  in  it  as  a  duty. 

Some  portion  of  his  time,  however,  he  devoted  to  less  exact- 
one's  success  in  life  depends  not  so  much  on  the  accidental  circumstances  which 
may  surround  him,  as  upon  the  active  energy  of  his  own  character.  .  .  .  All  that 
we  have  to  do  is  to  march  steadily  up  to  the  objects  which,  like  ghosts,  appear 
in  our  path,  but  vanish  when  we  draw  near  to  them.  Set  your  mark  high,  my 
dear  brother,  and  I  have  no  fears  for  you.  Do  not  think  it  safe  to  spend  any  mo 
ment  idly ;  it  is  not  safe 

"  Your  affectionate  brother, 

"SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  P.  S. — When  speaking  of  my  professional  situation,  I  omitted  to  mention  that  I 
have  yet  had  but  two  visitors  in  the  shape  of  clients ;  from  one  of  whom  I  never  ex 
pect  to  get  any  thing.  From  the  other  I  received  four  dollars." 

1  "  It  was  during  his  term  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  that  his  bankers  invested 
some  thousands  of  dollars  of  his  money  in  a  stock  which  rose  a  few  months  after 
ward,  giving  a  profit  on  the  transaction  of  some  four  thousand  dollars.    A  check 
for  the  amount,  nearly  a  year's  salary  of  a  Cabinet  officer  "  (at  that  time),  "  was  sent  to 
Mr.  Chase.    He  returned  it  to  be  destroyed,  and  declined  utterly  the  increase  made  _ 
upon  his  money." — DEMAREST  LLOYD, 
3 


34  LITE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

ing  and  laborious  employments,  and  found  happiness  and  relief 
in  doing  so.  lie  delivered  an  occasional  address  before  a  lyceum 
or  agricultural  society,  and  made  some  valuable  contributions  to 
the  current  literature.  An  article  on  Lord  Brougham — origi 
nally  written  and  delivered  as  a  lecture  before  the  Cincinnati 
Lyceum,  ah  institution  in  which  Mr.  Chase  took  an  active  in 
terest — printed  in  the  North  American  JReview,  for  July,  1831, 
furnishes  an  index  to  the  great  thoughts  that  even  then  were  in 
his  mind,  and  which  afterward  found  such  powerful  expression. 
He  honored  Brougham,  he  said,  "  not  for  the  splendor  of  his 
natural  endowments,  nor  the  vast  and  rich  variety  of  his  acqui 
sitions  ;  but  for  the  use  to  which  he  has  devoted  them  all.  lie 
has  set  them  apart  for  the  service  of  mankind.  He  has  a  title 
more  glorious  than  kings  can  give  or  schools  bestow ;  a  title  con 
ferred  upon  him  by  the  unsolicited  suffrage  of  the  world.  lie 
is  the  advocate  of  human  liberty.  He  belongs  to  a  great  party, 
which  has  arisen  in  modern  times — we  mean  the  party  of  the 
friends  of  freedom — universal  freedom ;  who  confine  their  re 
gards  within  the  limits  of  no  geographical  boundaries,  and  to  no 
peculiar  texture  or  color  of  the  skin." 

A  work  of  great  magnitude  and  importance  was  projected  by 
him  soon  after  his  arrival  in  Cincinnati,  and  successfully  accom 
plished  ;  which  gave  him  an  immediate  and  solid  claim  to  dis 
tinction,  and  at  once  placed  him  in  the  foremost  rank  among  the 
lawyers  of  his  State,  if  not  of  the  nation.  It  was  a  new  edition 
of  the  Statutes  of  Ohio,  afterward  and  now  familiarly  known 
as  "  Chase's  Statutes."  Some  idea  of  the  extent  of  this  work  may 
be  formed,  and  of  its  immense  demands  upon  the  intellectual 
faculties  and  physical  endurance  of  its  author,  when  its  whole 
scope  and  arrangement  are  understood.  It  required  a  careful 
reading  and  an  intent  study,  in  itself  and  in  all  its  connections 
prior  and  subsequent  to  its  enactment,  of  every  general  law 
enacted  by  the  annual  Legislatures  of  the  Northwestern  Ter 
ritory  and  of  the  State  of  Ohio,  from  the  first  appearance  of 
written  laws  in  the  former,  in  1T88,  down  to  1833  inclusive,  a 
period  of  forty-six  years.  The  statute  laws  in  force  in  Ohio  in 
1833  were  to  be  found  in  four  volumes  of  adopted  laws,  three 
volumes  of  territorial  enactments,  and  thirty-one  volumes  of 
general  statutes  of  the  State,  besides  many  local  statutes.  With 


CHASE'S  "STATUTES  OF  OHIO."  35 

none  of  these,  of  course,  did  Mr.  Chase  have  any  acquaintance 
when  he  began  practice  at  Cincinnati ;  but,  in  addition  to  the 
labor  already  indicated,  was  the  preparation  and  incorporation 
into  the  work  of  such  notes  and  references  as  would  enable  the 
practitioner  to  find,  with  ease  and  certainty,  what  at  any  time 
was  the  written  law  there  on  any  subject,  with  references  also  to 
the  decisions  of  the  courts.  As  every  lawyer  will  at  once  per 
ceive,  the  value  of  such  a  work  lay  in  its  entire  and  admitted 
completeness  and  accuracy.  In  neither  of  these  points  have 
"  Chase's  Statutes"  probably,  ever  been  questioned ;  in  both  they 
are  believed  to  be  unsurpassed  by  any  similar  work  in  this 
country.  "  They  are  at  once  a  monument  to  his  talents  and 
industry,  and  his  recognized  claim  to  the  gratitude  of  the  bar 
of  Ohio."  "  His  waiting  time,"  said  Chief -Justice  Drake 1 — re 
ferring  to  that  period  in  Mr.  Chase's  life  which  lay  between 
the  beginning  of  his  professional  career  and  the  establishment 
of  a  successful  practice — "  he  bravely  determined  should  be  one 
of  work,  heavy  and  exacting  work,  such  as  probably  no  young 
lawyer  of  twenty-two  years  of  age  ever  ventured  upon  before  or 

since." 

Chancellor  Kent  to  Salmon  Portland  Chase. 

'.'NEW  YOKE,  JuVij  1, 1835. 

....  "  Your  edition  of  the '  Statutes  of  Ohio '  is  a  great  work,  and  does 
credit  to  your  enterprise,  industry  and  accuracy,  and  I  wish  you  might  be 

1  "  Of  all  his  contemporaries  he  had  as  little  faculty  as  any  for  winning  practice 
on  the  street.  From  the  first  it  was  manifest  that  whatever  he  obtained  was  to  come 
to  him  as  the  reward  of  integrity,  ability,  fidelity  and  industry.  This  only  made  it 
the  more  certain  that  he  must  wait  for  success,  as  must  all  young  lawyers.  Whether 
the  period  of  waiting  shall  be  to  any  such  the  seed-time  for  a  rich  harvest,  depends 
upon  how  it  is  occupied.  Mr.  Chase  was  conspicuous  for  his  upright  life,  his  per 
sonal  dignity,  his  steady  devotion  to  his  profession,  and  his  ardent  purpose  to 
achieve  success,  if  assiduous,  earnest  and  faithful  labor  could  command  it." — CHIEF- 
JUSTICE  CHARLES  D.  DRAKE. 

But,  although  ample  success  finally  crowned  his  labor  and  patience,  the  first  two 
or  three  years  at  Cincinnati  were  filled  with  anxieties  and  hardships ;  they  were 
years  of  unremitting  toil  and  inadequate  rewards.  The  tradition  is,  that  his  first  fee 
was  a  silver  half-dollar,  which  his  client  paid  on  Tuesday  and  borrowed  back  on 
Wednesday,  and  never  repaid.  A  second  tradition  runs,  that  his  first  argument  (be 
fore  a  United  States  Court  in  1834)  was  an  almost  utter  failure  ;  that  he  broke  down 
at  the  very  beginning,  and  finished  it  with  labor  and  difficulty.  One  of  the  Judges 
congratulated  him :  "  On  what  ?  "  asked  Mr.  Chase,  in  great  surprise  and  with  some 
temper.  "  On  your  failure,"  responded  the  Judge ;  who  saw,  or  professed  to  see,  in 
it  an  anxious  solicitude  which  sooner  or  later  would  certainly  achieve  success. 


36  LITE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

amply  rewarded.  I  have  run  over  both  volumes  with  great  care,  and 
studied  those  acts  that  are  in  force,  and  the  third  edition  of  my  '  Commen 
taries  '  (which  I  shall  put  to  the  press  this  ensuing  autumn)  will  show  how 
far  I  have  been  enabled  to  correct  mistakes  and  avail  myself  of  its  advan 
tages.  I  intend  to  do  myself  the  honor  to  present  you  with  a  copy  of  this 
edition  when  it  comes  out  next  spring. 

"  I  consider  Ohio  as  one  of  the  most  important  States  in  the  Union,  and 
its  jurisprudence  and  laws  ought  to  be  as  well  and  accurately  and  fully 
known  as  those  of  any  other  State.  I  shall  do  all  I  can  to  effect  it.  Your 
'  Historical  Sketch  of  the  History  of  Ohio,'  prefixed  to  the  first  volume,  is 
admirable,  and  written  with  impartiality,  truth,  and  eloquence.  I  shall  not 
fail  to  incorporate  the  whole  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  in  proper  places,  in 
my  *  Commentaries,'  and  refer  in  the  Index  to  every  part.  I  feel  mortified 
that  I  have  been  too  inadvertent  of  that  document,  while  so  much  atten 
tion  has  been  paid  to  foreign  ordinances.  Your  patience  is  particularly 
praiseworthy,  for  I  never  witnessed  before  such  a  mutable  legislation  as 
your  volume  displays.  It  is  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  this  country. 
Your  statute  law  seems  to  have  been  in  constant  revolution,  like  the  re 
volving  lights  on  some  of  our  sea-girt  promontories.  The  militia  laws  are 
enormously  long,  and  reenacted,  in  extenso,  at  almost  every  session.  The 
constitution  of  Ohio  ought  to  have  provided  that  twelve  and  a  half  per  cent., 
at  least,  ought  to  be  deducted  from  the  wages  of  the  Legislature  every  session 
that  they  tax  the  public  with  a  new  militia  law.  So  your  revolving  legisla 
tion  as  to  organizing  and  holding  Judicial  Courts  and  punishing  and  de 
fining  crimes,  and  justices'  attachment  laws,  etc.,  etc.,  are  enough  to  pro 
voke  the  patience  of  Job ;  and  how  you  could  endure  the  task  of  revising 
and  correcting  the  proof  of  such  laws,  I  can  hardly  conceive,  with  all  my 
own  habits  of  perseverance. 

"  But  you  have  your  reward  in  the  good  you  have  done,  in  the  talents 
you  have  shown,  and  in  the  gratitude  of  your  profession,  and  I  beg  leave 
to  add  my  own,  with  the  assurances  of  the  highest  respect  and  regards  of 

"  Your  most  ob't  serv't, 
•  "JAMES  KENT." 

Associate-Justice  Joseph  Story  to  Salmon  Portland  Chase. 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  1, 1S34. 

.  ..."  I  had  the  pleasure,  two  days  ago,  to  receive  the  copy  of  your 
edition  of  the  { Statutes  of  Ohio,'  which  you  very  obligingly  sent  me.  I 
beg  to  return  you  my  sincere  thanks  for  this  very  acceptable  present.  I 
have  read  over  your  preface,  and  am  greatly  pleased  with  it,  as  well  as 
your  able  execution  of  the  whole  work.  It  was  truly  a  desideratum,  con 
sidering  the  bulky  and  inconvenient  volumes  in  which  your  Statutes  were 
collected  ;  and  does  equal  honor  to  your  enterprise,  your  industry  and  your 
talents.  I  wish,  with  all  my  heart,  that  other  States  would  imitate  this 
example,  for  in  most  of  them  there  is  a  sad  neglect  of  the  old  repealed 


CHASE'S  "STATUTES  OF  OHIO."  37 

laws ;  and  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  trace  out  the  history  and  progress  of 
their  legislation.  I  trust  that  there  will  be  no  want  of  encouragement  to 
complete  your  most  meritorious  work,  and  shall  feel  honored  by  the  privi 
lege  of  having  a  copy  of  it  in  my  library.  .  .  . 

"  Your  obliged  servant, 

"JOSEPH  STORY." 

The  work,  however,  was  not  pecuniarily  a  success.  An  edi 
tion  of  one  thousand  copies  was  printed  at  a  large  expense ;  sev 
eral  hundred  copies  of  the  second  volume  wrere  lost  by  fire ;  and 
of  all  the  copies  printed  .the  State  subscribed  for  but  one  hun 
dred  and  fifty.  Mr.  Chase  received  about  one  thousand  dollars 
for  his  labor  upon  the  work ;  and  probably  the  publishers 
(Corey  &  Fairchild,  of  Cincinnati)  made  no  more,  if  so  much, 
after  deducting  expenses  and  cost  of  capital  employed. 


CHAPTER    VII. 


THE     PRESIDENTIAL     CANVASS     OF     1832 ANTI-MASONS MR.    WIRT 

THE     BIENEY     MOB  " "THE     PHILAN- 


MATILDA  CASE NORTON  8.  TOWN8HEND TRIAL  OF  MR.  BIRNEY. 

A  LTHOUGH  Mr.  Chase  at  this  period  had  allied  himself  to 
•JLA_  no  political  party,  the  course  of  political  events  was  not 
wholly  unobserved  by  him,  nor  were  they  without  a  personal  in 
terest.  In  1832  his  friend  and  former  preceptor,  William  Wirt, 
was  a  candidate  for  the  presidency ;  being  placed  in  nomination 
by  that  element  in  the  current  politics  known  as  the  Anti-Ma 
son,1  and  Mr.  Chase  desired  his  election,  not  from  Anti-Masonic 
motives,  but  because  he  believed  in  Mr.  Wirt's  great  virtues  and 
great  abilities.  He  was  conscious,  from  the  very  opening  of  the 
canvass,  however,  that  Mr.  Wirt  could  not  be  elected,  and  took 
no  other  part  than  to  vote  for  what  was  called  the  unpledged 
ticket ;  that  is  to  say,  for  electors  pledged  to  vote  for  either 
Wirt  or  Clay,  as  either  might  have  a  majority  of  electoral  votes 
in  the  nation. 

In    1836  he  voted  for  General  Harrison;  not  because  he 
sympathized  particularly  with  the  Whig  party,  but  because  he 

1  Mr.  Wirt  in  his  younger  years  had  himself  been  a  Mason,  and  his  letter  of  ac 
ceptance  substantially  repudiated  anti-masonry  ;  a  curious  illustration  of  the  incon 
gruous  political  fellowship  common  in  American  politics.  In  the  current  party  liter 
ature  of  the  canvass  in  1832  will  be  found  a  letter  of  Mr.  Wirt  to  Mr.  Chase,  some- 
what  explanatory  of  his  motives  in  accepting  a  nomination.  Mr.  Wirt  received  the 
electoral  vote  of  but  a  single  State  (Vermont). 


"THE  BIRNEY  MOB."  39 

was  the  personal  friend  of  Harrison,  and  knew  but  little  of  Mr. 
Yan  Buren. 

In  1840  he  again  voted  for  Harrison ;  influenced  at  this 
time  by  decided  antislavery  sentiments. 

Meantime  an  event  which  largely  determined  Mr.  Chase's 
political  action,  happened  at  Cincinnati  in  July,  1836,  and  is  his 
torically  known  as  the  "  Birney  mob." 

James  Gr.  Birney  was  a  Southern  man,  a  lawyer",  and  a  slave 
holder,  who,  in  1833,  emancipated  his  slaves,  and  thenceforward 
devoted  his  life  and  energies  to  the  antislavery  cause.  In 
April,  1836,  he  established  his  newspaper,  the  Philanthropist, 
at  Cincinnati ;  but  the  public  sentiment  of  the  city  was  violent 
ly  pro-slavery,  as  indeed  was  the  almost  universal  public  senti 
ment  of  the  country,  and  his  paper  soon  attracted  attention,  and 
became  a  definite  object  of  popular  hatred  and  complaint.  On 
the  12th  of  July,  at  midnight,  his  office  was  entered  by  a  mob, 
and  his  types  and  press  were  seriously  damaged.  Threats 
were  made  at  the  same  time,  that  unless  the  publication  of  the 
paper  was  stopped,  the  assault  would  be  repeated  and  the  office 
destroyed.  Some  days  later,  on  the  21st  of  July,  a  public  meet 
ing  was  held  by  the  citizens,  to  consider  whether  they  "  would 
permit  the  publication  or  distribution  of  abolition  papers  in 
Cincinnati."  The  mayor  of  the  city  presided  ;  and  the  meeting, 
a  large  one,  deliberately  resolved  that  nothing  less  than  a  com 
plete  abandonment  of  the  publication  of  the  paper  would  pre 
vent  a  resort  to  violence.  This  meeting  further  proclaimed 
that  they  would  use  all  the  lawful  means  at  their  command  to 
suppress  any  newspaper  advocating  the  modern  doctrine  of  abo 
lition.  A  committee  of  thirteen  was  appointed  to  wait  upon 
Mr.  Birney  and  his  associates,  to  request  an  abandonment  of 
the  publication  of  their  paper ;  and  to  warn  them  that  if  they  did 
not  comply,  the  meeting  would  not  be  responsible  for  the  conse 
quences.  On  the  evening  of  the  28th  this  committee  of  citi 
zens  (which  was  composed  of  gentlemen  of  large  wealth  and 
commanding  social  position,  headed  by  Judge  Burnett,  who  had 
formerly  been  a  United  States  Senator),  and  the  executive  com 
mittee  of  the  Ohio  Antislavery  Society,  under  whose  auspices 
the  Philanthropist  was  published,  held  a  conference.  The  anti- 
slavery  committee  proposed  a  public  discussion ;  but  the  citi- 


40  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

zens'  committee  would  hear  of  nothing  less  than  the  immediate 
discontinuance  of  the  Philanthropist,  and  utter  silence  on  the 
subject  of  slavery.  In  case  of  refusal  to  comply  with  this  de 
mand,  they  predicted  "  a  mob  unusual  in  numbers,  determined 
in  its  purposes,  and  desolating  in  its  ravages."  Judge  Burnett 
expressed  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  mob  would  consist  of  five 
thousand  persons,  and  that  two-thirds  of  the  property-holders  of 
the  city  would  join  it.  The  citizens'  committee  was  then  asked 
whether,  if  the  mob  could  be  averted,  they  (the  committee) 
would  be  willing  that  the  publication  of  the  paper  should  go  on. 
Several  of  the  committee,  including  the  chairman,  promptly  an 
swered  that  they  would  not,  and  the  antislavery  committee  was 
informed  that  it  would  be  allowed  until  noon  the  next  day  to 
give  a  final  answer  touching  the  matter  of  the  conference. 

At  noon  the  next  day  the  eight  members  composing  the 
antislavery  executive  committee  announced  their  determination 
not  to  comply  with  the  insolent  and  lawless  demand  made  upon 
them. 

This  answer  was  decisive  of  the  result  which  followed. 

In  the  evening  another  meeting  was  held  by  the  rioters,  and 
they  resolved  that  the  types  and  press  belonging  to  the  Philan 
thropist  should  be  thrown  into  the  streets,  and  its  editor  noti 
fied  to  leave  the  city  within  twenty-four  hours.  With  the  dark 
ness  of  the  night,  the  work  of  destruction  began ;  the  office  was 
entered  and  pillaged,  the  types  were  scattered  into  the  streets, 
and  the  press  thrown  into  the  river.  The  mob  sought  Mr.  Bir- 
ney ;  he  was  absent  from  the  city,  and  not  finding  him,  they 
turned  their  rage  upon  the  humble  unoffending  homes  of  the 
colored  people.  After  several  hours,  near  midnight,  the  mayor 
advised  the  mob  to  go  home  ;  that  "  enough  had  been  done,  no 
more  need  be — to  convince  the  abolitionists  that  the  public 
sentiment  of  the  city  was  not  to  be  defied." 

In  these  events  Mr.  Chase  had  no  other  participation  than 
that  of  any  other  citizen,  seeing  some  part  of  them;  but 
they  filled  his  mind  with  a  profound  indignation,  and  he  de 
nounced  them  with  the  bitterness  of  deep  feeling.  He  dis 
claimed  being  an  abolitionist,  and  indeed  was  not  one ;  but  he 
protested,  in  fearless  and  vigorous  language,  bis  hatred  of  all 
mob-violence,  and  his  fixed  purpose  to  support,  in  every  lawful 


"THE  BIRXEY  MOB  "— THE  MATILDA  CASE.  41 

way,  freedom  of  speech  and  freedom  of  the  press.  "  FREEDOM 
OF  THE  PRESS  AND  CONSTITUTIONAL  LIBERTY,"  he  solemnly  and 
publicly  declared,  "  MUST  LIVE  OR  PERISH  TOGETHER."  Nor  in  a 
future  time,  when  the  suppression  of  obnoxious  newspapers  be 
came  a  matter  of  executive  action,  did  he  shrink  from  the  sup 
port  of  his  principles  on  this  subject. 

The  circumstances  of  the  "  Birney  mob  "  made  a  deep  im 
pression  upon  Mr.  Chase's  mind,  and  induced  him  to  a  careful 
and  thorough  examination  of  the  slave-system ;  though  it  must 
not  be  inferred 1  from  this  statement  that  he  previously  had  no 
decided  opinions  concerning  it.  His  early  training,  his  strong 
religious  convictions,  and  the  natural  bent  of  his  temper,  were 
alike  opposed  to  slavery ;  while  his  observations  and  experiences 
at  Washington,  almost  immediately  upon  his  arrival,  and  during 
the  whole  of  his  residence  there  (in  those  days  the  capital  was  a 
prominent  slave-market),  had  deepened  his  feelings  into  a  fixed 
aversion ;  but  he  thought  it  a  question  to  be  solved  rather  by 
social  and  religious  influences  than  by  political  action.  He  now, 
measurably  at  least,  changed  his  opinions  as  to  the  proper  meth 
ods  of  dealing  with  it. 

A  few  months  later,  and  a  new  impulse  was  given  to  his 
thoughts.  In  March,  1837,  he  was  called  upon,  by  some  anti- 
slavery  men,  to  engage  his  legal  aid  in  behalf  of  an  alleged 
fugitive  slave. 

The  circumstances  of  the  case  were  these : 

Matilda,  the  alleged  fugitive,  had  been  a  slave  in  Virginia, 
whose  master  had  removed  from  that  State  to  Missouri,  taking 
his  slaves  with  him.  On  arrival  at  Cincinnati,  the  steamboat 
on  which  he  was  traveling  was  fastened  to  the  wharf  or  dock, 
as  steamboats  were  usually  fastened.  "While  the  boat  lay  there, 
Matilda  went  on  shore,  and  was  concealed  by  some  colored  peo 
ple,  until  she  found  employment  as  a  servant  in  the  family  of 
James  Gr.  Birney ;  who,  ignorant  of  her  antecedents,  naturally 
supposed  her  to  be  a  free  woman.  The  owner  continued  his 
journey  to  Missouri  without  her,  but  left  agents  behind  him 

1  "  Since  1828,"  says  Mr.  Chase  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Mr.  Trowbridge,  "  I  had 
retained  a  profound  sense  of  the  general  wrong  and  evil  of  slaveholding.  But  I 
thought  the  denunciations  of  slaveholders  by  abolition  writers  as  too  sweeping  and 
unjust,  and  I  was  not  prepared  for  any  political  action  against  slavery." 


42  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

with  instructions  for  her  recovery.     She  was  discovered  one 
morning  at  Mr.  Birney's  gate,  was  seized  and  hurried  away. 

The  friends  of  the  woman,  chief  among  whom  were  the 
family  of  Mr.  Birney,  were  prompt  to  act  in  her  behalf,  insist 
ing  that  as  she  had  been  brought  to  the  steamboat-landing  with 
the  full  consent  of  her  master,  and  thus  within  the  territorial 
jurisdiction  of  the  State  of  Ohio,  she  could  not  be  taken  thence 
without  her  consent.  Mr.  Chase  had  no  doubt  of  the  correct 
ness  of  this  view  of  the  law,  and  readily  engaged  to  do  what 
he  could  for  her  protection. 

His  first  step  was  to  procure  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  under 
which  she  was  taken  from  the  custody  of  those  who  held  her 
(by  virtue  of  a  writ  issued  by  a  justice  of  the  peace),  and 
brought  before  the  president  judge  of  the  Court  of  Common 
Pleas  ;  but,  though  the  Judge  heard  the  case  with  courtesy  and 
fairness,  like  almost  all  lawyers  and  judges,  and  indeed  like 
almost  all  men  of  the  time,  he  looked  upon  claims  to  slaves  as 
more  entitled  to  favor  than  claims  to  liberty.  Mr.  Chase  ar 
gued  his  construction  of  the  law,  now  universally  admitted  to 
have  been  correct,  with  all  the  earnestness  of  entire  conviction. 
His  argument  was  founded  upon  this  simple  proposition,  that 
when  a  slave-owner  voluntarily  brought  his  slave  into  a  free 
State,  the  slave  by  that  act  became  free,  and  could  in  no  sense 
be  called  a  fugitive,  nor  reclaimed  as  a  fugitive  under  the  Fed 
eral  law.  But  in  vain.  The  vehement,  passionate  appeals  of 
the  counsel  for  the  slave-claimant  found  an  equally  passionate 
response  in  the  sympathies  of  both  court  and  people  ;  and  Ma 
tilda  was  remanded  into  slavery. 

Mr.  Chase's  argument  was  printed  and  largely  circulated, 
and  more  or  less  contributed  to  turn  public  attention  to  the 
slave-question. 

In  the  audience  sat  a  young  medical  student,  then  and  for 
many  years  thereafter  unknown  to  Mr.  Chase,  who,  full  of  sym 
pathy  for  the  miserable  fugitive,  listened  with  a  deep  attention 
to  Mr.  Chase's  argument  in  her  behalf.  The  issue  of  the  trial 
filled  him  with  indignation ;  but  he  treasured  up  in  his  heart 
the  noble  thoughts  that  fell  from  the  lips  of  her  advocate.  He 
afterward  went,  to  Europe,  and  pursued  his  medical  studies  in 
the  schools  of  Paris  and  other  cities  of  the  Continent,  and 


NORTON  S.   TOWNSHEND— THE  BIRNEY  CASE.  43 

returned  with,  his  hatred  of  slavery  unabated  but  rather  deep 
ened  by  absence.  He  settled  as  a  physician  in  one  of  the  towns 
of  Northern  Ohio,  Elyria,  and  won  reputation  and  success.  In 
184:8  he  was  elected  to  the  Legislature  of  the  State;  and  was 
one  of  that  small  number  who,  independent  of  both  parties,  and 
willing  to  use  either  for  the  advancement  of  their  principles, 
secured,  through  cooperation  with  old-line  Democrats,  the  re 
peal  of  that  code  of  oppressive  enactments  against  the  colored 
people  known  as  the  Hack  laws,  and  the  election  of  Mr.  Chase 
to  the  United  States  Senate.  The  medical  student  was  Dr. 
Norton  S.  Townshend,  who  as  much  as  any  other  person,  per 
haps  more,  contributed  to  bring  Mr.  Chase  into  the  national 
councils. 

But  the  case  of  Matilda  developed  itself  under  another 
phase.  Some  pro-slavery  men  of  Cincinnati  instituted  pro 
ceedings  against  James  G.  Eirney,  under  a  statute  of  the  State, 
for  harboring  a  fugitive  slave.  The  case  was  tried  before  the 
same  Judge  who  had  heard  the  argument  for  Matilda ;  Mr. 
Chase  now  appearing  as  counsel  for  Mr.  Birney.  The  defend 
ant  was  found  guilty,  and  fined  fifty  dollars.  From  this  deci 
sion  Mr.  Chase  took  an  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
State,  and  it  was  heard  before  that  tribunal.  There  was  a  de 
fect  in  the  allegations  of  the  indictment  to  which  Mr.  Chase 
had  not  invoked  the  attention  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas, 
and  in  the  Supreme  Court  he  purposely  avoided  directing  at 
tention  to  it ;  his  anxious  desire  being  to  extort  a  decision 
upon  the  main  question,  whether  Matilda,  having  been  vol 
untarily  brought  into  the  State  by  her  master,  remained  a  slave. 
If  she  was  not  a  slave,  Mr.  Birney  of  course  had  not  harbored 
a  slave. 

At  this  time,  the  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio  had  a  rule  in  force 
which  prohibited  the  publication  of  arguments  of  counsel,  ex 
cept  upon  special  direction  of  the  court.  The  report  of  the 
case  of  the  State  of  Ohio  against  Birney  (which  will  be  found  in 
the  eighth  Ohio  Reports)  shows  that  the  court  reversed  the  de 
cision  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas,  but  upon  the  technical 
ground  to  which  Mr.  Chase  had  not  asked  the  attention  of  either 
of  the  courts  ;  at  the  same  time  the  court  directed  the  publica 
tion  of  his  argument,  though  that  argument  did  not  in  the 


4:4:  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

slightest  degree  touch  upon  the  point  decided.1  The  truth  of 
the  matter  probably  was,  that  the  Supreme  Court  thought  the 
judgment  of  the  court  below  ought  to  be  reversed  ;  and  was  yet 
unwilling  to  meet  the  question,  but  was  desirous  to  have  it 
brought  to  the  attention  of  the  profession  and  the  people 
through  the  medium  of  the  reports. 

1  The  point  decided  by  the  court  was  that  "  an  indictment  for  harboring  and 
secreting  a  slave  is  bad  without  an  averment  that  the  defendant  knew  the  person 
harbored  to  be  a  slave." 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

VOTES  FOR   HARBISON  IN  1840 — VIEWS  OF  POLITICAL   PROBABILITIES 
— ACCESSION  OF  JOHN  TYLER — MR.   CHASEJS  IDEAS  RESPECTING 

ANTISL AVERT    ACTION ANTISL AVERT    CONVENTION    OF   1840 

ORGANIZATION   OF   THE  LIBERTT   PARTT   IN   OHIO    IN   1841 ITS 

ADDRESS MR.    CHASE5S    HOPES. 

ME.  CHASE  voted  the  Whig  ticket  in  1840,  because  he  be 
lieved,  as  he  said,  "  in  the  sincere  and  elevated  patriotism 
of  General  Harrison,"  though,  if  his  wishes  had  been  as  potential 
as  they  were  sincere,  Associate- Justice  John  McLean,  of  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States,  would  have  been  opposed  to 
Mr.  Yan  Buren.  On  fundamental  political  principles,  however, 
he  was  more  nearly  in  accord  with  the  Northern  supporters  of 
Mr.  Yan  Buren  than  with  the  friends  of  General  Harrison. 
But  when  Mr.  Yan  Buren  pledged  himself  to  veto  any  act  of 
Congress  which  might  be  passed  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in 
the  District  of  Columbia,  and  interposed  against  the  self-lib 
erated  prisoners  of  the  Amistad  slave-ship,  he  found  it  impos 
sible  to  give  his  support  to  the  Democratic  candidate.  Never 
theless,  he  voted  for  General  Harrison  with  many  misgivings, 
though  in  the  belief  that  Harrison  was  favorable  to  a  general 
policy  of  emancipation,  and  would  leave  the  question  of  slavery, 
so  far  as  constitutionally  within  the  control  of  Congress,  to  that 
disposal,  without  Executive  interference.  He  thought  he  fore 
saw — dimly  enough,  however — a  succession  of  events  somewhat 
like  this :  a  Whig  President  and  the  Whig  party  pro-slavery ; 
the  Democratic  party  antislavery  and  a  Democratic  President, 


46  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

and  a  restriction  of  .slavery  within  the  bounds  of  States  where 
it  existed  by  the  local  law,  and  a  divorcement  of  the  Federal 
Government  from  all  responsibility  on  account  of  it. 

General  Harrison  was  elected,  and  soon  afterward  made  a 
visit  in  Virginia  to  his  friends,  which  possibly  somewhat  af 
fected  his  views  concerning  slavery.  In  his  inaugural  address 
he  made  a  pledge,  touching  congressional  action  on  slavery  in 
the  District  of  Columbia,  substantially  similar  to  that  made  by 
Mr.  Yan  Buren  before  the  election.  This  pledge  was  all  the 
more  significant,  because  a  considerable  meeting  of  his  friends 
held  in  Cincinnati,  not  long  before  his  inauguration,  had  taken 
strong  grounds  against  the  continuance  of  slavery  in  the  Dis 
trict.  In  the  call  for  this  meeting  and  in  its  proceedings,  Mr. 
Chase  had  taken  an  active  part,  and  its  resolutions  expressed  his 
earnest  convictions.  Still  he  did  not  surrender  hope. 

But  the  death  of  General  Harrison,  and  the  accession  of 
John  Tyler,  with  his  known  and  avowed  views  on  slavery,  left 
nothing  to  be  expected  from  his  Administration  by  those  op 
posed  to  its  nationalization  and  domination. 

Up  to  this  time  Mr.  Chase  had  not  regarded  with  favor  the 
formation  of  a  separate  party  on  the  basis  of  antislavery ;  in 
deed,  he  had  regarded  a  third-party  movement  somewhat  with 
disfavor,  as  in  his  judgment  premature.  But  he  now  became 
thoroughly  convinced  that  no  firm  and  effectual  resistance  to  the 
slave-domination  was  to  be  expected  except  by  the  creation  of  a 
party  founded  upon  the  ideas — 

1.  That,  outside  of  slave  '/States,  slavery  was  prohibited  ly 
the  Federal   Constitution,  and  therefore  should  be  restricted 
within  the  limits  of  those  States  whose  constitutions  sanctioned 
it;  and — 

2.  That  the  slave-interest  dominated  the  administration  of 
national  affairs,  and  should  le  overthrown. 

Already  in  1840  a  convention  of  antislavery  men,  about  one 
hundred  and  twenty  in  number,  and  coming  together  from  five  or 
six  different  States,  had  met  at  Albany,  and  put  in  nomination 
candidates  for  President  and  Yice-President :  James  G.  Birney, 
of  Ohio,  for  the  former ;  and  Thomas  Earle,  of  Pennsylvania, 
for  the  latter  office.  This  action  did  not  meet  the  approval 
even  of  the  whole  body  of  the  radical  antislavery  men  of  the 


LIBERTY  PARTY  ORGANIZED  IN  OHIO.  47 

time,  and  led  to  some  division  among  them,  and  failed  to  com 
mand  their  united  support. 

Out  of  two  million  and  a  half  votes  cast  at  the  election  in 
Xovember,  1840,  Mr.  Birney  received  less  than  seven  thousand. 
His  friends  voted  for  him  upon  the  general  principle  that  it 
was  wrong  to  vote  for  a  slaveholder,  or  for  any  candidate  who 
was  not  distinctly  and  unequivocally  opposed  to  slavery.  The 
support  given  to  him  could  hardly  be  called  political ;  it  was 
more  a  moral  and  religious  movement  than  otherwise,  and  much 
more  spontaneous  than  organized,  though  doubtless  it  did  ex 
press  a  conviction  that  some  form  of  organization  against  slavery 
had  become  a  political  necessity. 

In  that  conviction  Mr.  Chase  now  joined.  With  a  large 
faculty  for  organization,  and  all  his  life  delighting  in  its  exer 
cise,  he  turned  all  his  great  energies  in  the  direction  of  combin 
ing  the  antislavery  elements  into  a  single  compact  body  for  po 
litical  action,  upon  the  basis  of  a  constitutional  opposition  to  the 
slave-domination.  His  method  was  to  organize  first  in  the  State, 
and  then  throughout  the  nation. 

Together  with  some  other  antislavery  men  of  Ohio,  who 
agreed  with  him  alike  in  conviction  of  the  necessity,  the  meth 
ods,  and  the  basis  of  antislavery  action,  he  called  a  State  Conven 
tion  to  meet  at  Columbus  on  the  29th  of  December,  1841. 

The  convention  met  accordingly,  and  was  attended  by  over 
two  hundred  delegates  from  different  parts  of  the  State,  chiefly 
farmers  and  artisans,  some  of  them  men  of  local  influence,  and 
in  its  whole  constitution  as  respectable  for  intelligence  and  per 
sonal  worth  as  any  similar  body  ever  convened  in  Ohio. 

Mr.  Chase  was  its  most  active  and  important  member,  and, 
in  fact,  directed  its  action.  He  was  the  author  of  its  resolutions 
and  address  to  the  people,  in  which — for  the  first  time — the  prin 
ciples  and  policy  of  the  Liberty  party  were  distinctly  stated  as 
resting  on  recognized  doctrines  of  constitutional  construction 
and  well-defined  principles  of  national  administration. 

"  We  have  not  committed  ourselves  to  a  course  of  political 
action,"  said  the  address,  "  which  separates  us  from  the  parties 
with  which  we  have  heretofore  acted  without  reluctance  and  a 
struggle.  Many  of  us  have,  until  quite  lately,  indulged  the  idea 
that  this  separation  was  not  absolutely  necessary.  Against  hope 


48  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

we  have  persevered  in  hope  that  deliverance  to  the  people  of 
this  country  from  the  manifold  evils  they  suffer  in  consequence 
of  the  ascendency  of  slaveholding  influence,  in  all  the  depart 
ments  of  our  national  Government,  would  arise  from  the  action 
of  one  or  the  other  of  the  political  parties  which  now  claim 
to  divide  the  country.  All  such  expectation,  however,  after 
having  been  repeatedly  disappointed  and  repeatedly  resumed, 
is  now  finally  relinquished." 

After  stating  the  several  causes  which,  in  the  judgment  of 
the  convention,  made  separate  action  indispensable,  the  address 
proceeded : 

"When  our  fathers  assumed  an  independent  rank  among 
the  nations,  they  announced  their  political  creed  to  the  world  in 
the  most  solemn  manner :  c  We  hold  these  truths  to  fie  self-evi 
dent  :  that  all  men  are  created  equal ;  that  they  are  endowed  ly 
their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights ;  that  among  these 
are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pur  suit  of  happiness?  In  this  short  and 
sublime  declaration  they  embodied  the  fundamental  principles 
on  which  they  proposed  to  establish  the  free  government  of  the 
United  States. 

"  Their  creed  is  our  creed.  *  Their  faith  is  our  faith.  All  the 
objects  which  we  seek  to  accomplish  will  be  attained  when  the 
government  which  they  bequeathed  to  us  is  restored  to  the  con 
trol  of  the  principles  which  they  proclaimed. 

.  .  .  .  "  By  the  convention  which  framed  the  [Federal]  Con 
stitution,  the  irreconcilable  opposition  of  slavery  to  freedom, 
and  of  slave-labor  to  free  labor,  was  well  understood,  and  the 
solemn  pledge  given  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
freshly  remembered.  The  soil  wet  with  the  blood  of  freedom's 
martyrs  was  hardly  dry,  and  the  echoes  of  devout  thanksgiving 
for  the  great  triumph  of  American  liberty  yet  lingered  through 
out  the  land. 

"  It  was  impossible  that  this  convention  could  recognize  the 
principle  of  slavery  in  the  frame  of  the  national  Government. 
In  the  emphatic  language  of  Mr.  Madison,  '  they  thought  it 
WTJONG  to  admit  in  the  Constitution  the  idea  that  there  could  be 
property  in  man !  Yet,  as  they  had  no  power  to  change  the 
personal  relations  of  the  inhabitants  of  any  State  to  each  other, 
but  were  charged  with  the  duty  of  framing  a  general  system  of 


LIBERTY  PARTY  ADDRESS.  49 

government  for  the  people  of  all  the  States,  leaving  those  rela 
tions  untouched,  it  was  equally  impossible  for  them  to  abolish 
slavery  in  the  States  where  it  existed.' 

"  Accordingly,  we  find  that  the  Constitution  designates  afl 
the  inhabitants  of  the  States  as  persons,  and  nowhere  recognizes 
the  idea  that  men  can  be  the  subjects  of  property ;  at  the  same 
time  it  nowhere  confers  on  Congress  the  right  to  abolish  slavery 
in  the  States  where  it  is  recognized  and  sanctioned  by  the  local 
constitutions.  .  .  .  The  Constitution  found  slavery  and  left  it 
a  State  institution — the  creature  and  dependant  of  State  law — 
wholly  local  in  its  existence  and  character.  It  did  not  make  it 
a  national  institution.  It  gave  it  no  national  character ;  no  na 
tional  existence. 

.  .  .  .  "  Why,  then,  fellow-citizens,  are  we  now  appealing  to 
you  ?  Why  have  thousands  of  our  countrymen,  in  other  States, 
ranged  themselves  under  the  banner  of  constitutional  liberty 
against  slavery  ?  Why  is  it  that  the  whole  nation  is  moved,  as 
with  a  mighty  wind,  by  the  discussion  of  the  questions  involved 
in  the  great  issue  now  made  up  between  liberty  and  slavery  ? 

"  It  is,  fellow-citizens — and  we  beg  you  to  mark  this — IT  is 

BECAUSE  SLAVERY  HAS  OVERLEAPED  ITS  PRESCRIBED  LIMITS  AND 
USURPED  THE  CONTROL  OF  THE  NATIONAL  GOVERNMENT.  It  IS 

strictly  a  State  institution,  but  it  has  arrogated  to  itself  a  national 
character.  The  General  Government  has  no  control  over  it  in 
the  States  ;  but  it  has  unwarrantably  assumed  to  control  in  the 
administration  of  national  affairs. 

.  .  .  .  "  We  ask  you,  fellow-citizens,  to  acquaint  yourselves 
fully  with  the  details  and  particulars  belonging  to  the  topics 
which  we  have  briefly  touched,  and  we  do  not  doubt  that  you 
will  concur  with  us  in  believing  that  THE  HONOR,  THE  WELFARE, 
THE  SAFETY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY  imperiously  require  THE  ABSOLUTE 

AND  UNQUALIFIED  DIVORCE  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT  FROM  SLAVERY. 

.  .  .  .  "  We  would,  therefore,  withdraw  the  support  of  na 
tional  legislation  from  the  system  of  slavery. 

"We  would  enforce  the  just  and  constitutional  rule  that 
slavery  is  the  creature  of  local  law,  and  cannot  be  extended  be 
yond  the  limits  of  the  State  in  which  it  exists." 

Upon  this  general  ground  of  action  against  slavery  the  con 
vention  appealed  to  the  people  of  Ohio  for  approval  and  sup- 
4 


50  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

port,  and  declared  that  by  its  adoption  "  the  blessings  of  the 
JUST  GOD,  who  presides  over  the  destinies  of  nations,  would  be 
upon  onr  beloved  country  and  all  her  institutions." 

But  the  convention  did  not  rest  upon  this  general  principle 
of  slavery  restriction,  but  insisted  upon  its  abolition  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia,  and  its  exclusion  from  all  places  within  the 
constitutional  jurisdiction  of  the  General  Government.  It  de 
clared,  moreover,  for  the  inviolability  of  the  freedom  of  the 
press,  of  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  and  right  of  petition ;  for  a 
thorough  reform  in  the  currency,  for  a  rigid  economy  in  the 
public  expenditures,  and  for  the  general  education  of  the  people, 
white  and  black.  The  convention  nominated,  as  a  candidate  for 
Governor,  Leicester  King — formerly  a  State  senator  and  a  well- 
known  and  honored  citizen.  And  finally,  it  strongly  recom 
mended  to  the  friends  of  the  movement  organization  in  town 
ships  and  counties ;  and  proposed  a  national  convention  prelim 
inary  to  organization  for  national  action. 

The  result  of  the  convention  at  Columbus  was  highly  satis 
factory  to  Mr.  Chase.  He  believed  the  ground  of  antislavery 
action  presented  by  it  to  be  that  warranted  by  constitutional 
obligation ;  that  upon  which  the  mass  of  the  people  might  more 
certainly  and  readily  be  brought  into  union ;  and  that  method  by 
which  complete  emancipation  of  the  slave  population  would  be 
ultimately  secured,  unattended  by  popular  convulsion  and  calam 
ity.  Nor  were  the  labors  of  the  convention  less  satisfactory  to 
its  own  members  than  to  the  antislavery  citizens  of  the  State. 
The  address  and  resolutions  were  received  with  great  favor ;  and 
although  there  was  no  apparent  possibility  of  any  political  ad 
vancement  for  Liberty  men — for  the  two  old  parties  were  in 
possession  of  all  the  offices — yet  the  friends  of  the  movement 
labored  on,  in  the  midst  of  great  opposition  and  many  discour 
agements,  with  little  to  cheer,  other  than  the  satisfaction  of 
duty  performed  and  the  hope  of  good  to  be  accomplished,  and 
some  progress  made. 

"  For  my  own  part,"  writes  Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Trowbridge, 
"  having  resolved  on  my  political  course,  1  devoted  all  the  time 
and  means  I  could  command  to  the  work  of  spreading  the  prin 
ciples  and  building  up  the  organization  of  the  party  of  constitu 
tional  freedom  then  inaugurated.  Sometimes,  indeed,  all  I  could 


LIBERTY  PARTY  ADDRESS.  51 

do  seemed  insignificant,  while  the  labors  I  had  to  perform  and 
the  demands  upon  my  very  limited  resources  by  necessary  con 
tributions  taxed  severely  all  my  ability. 

.  ..."  It  seems  to  me  now,  on  looking  back,  that  I  could 
not  help  working  if  I  would;  and  that  I  was  just  as  really 
called  in  the  course  of  Providence  to  my  labors  for  human  free 
dom,  as  ever  any  other  laborer  in  the  great  field  of  the  world 
was  called  to  his  appointed  work." 


CHAPTEE   IX. 


ME.    CHASE   "  ATTORNEY-GENERAL    FOR    RUNAWAY    NEGROES  "—THE 

CASE    OF   JOHN    VAN   ZANDT MR.    CHASE?S    ARGUMENT    BEFORE 

THE   SUPREME   COURT  OF  THE   UNITED   STATES ITS  CONCLUSION. 


THE  reader  must  not  suppose,  from  what  precedes,  that  the 
case  of  Matilda  was  the  only  slave-defense  in  which  Mr. 
Chase  was  engaged  during  this  period  of  his  life.  He  was  coun 
sel  in  so  many  that  finally  he  came  to  be  known  in  Kentucky  as 
the  "  attorney-general  for  runaway  negroes."  But  the  absence 
of  all  invective  and  denunciation,  and  indeed  of  all  passion,  in 
his  management  of  such  cases,  with  his  uniform  calmness  and 
courtesy,  and  his  evident  desire  to  vindicate  the  law,  measurably 
warded  from  him  the  personal  disrespect  which  attended  known 
antislavery  men ;  so  that  when  Mr.  Chase  went  into  Kentucky, 
as  he  sometimes  did  on  professional  business,  the  Kentuckians 
usually  treated  him  with  marked  deference  and  kindness.  Touch 
ing  his  office  as  "  attorney-general  for  runaway  negroes,"  Mr. 
Chase  protested  his  liking  for  it,  because  there  were  neither  fees 
nor  perquisites  nor  salary  attending  upon  its  duties.  He  never 
refused  his  help  to  any  poor  man,  white  or  black. 

But  it  would  be  an  utter  mistake  to  suppose  that  Mr.  Chase 
was  not  an  object  of  hate  ;  for  he  was — of  hate  bitter  and  unre 
lenting.  It  is  difficult  now  for  any  one  unacquainted  with  the 
earlier  days  of  the  slavery  struggle,  to  form  a  very  correct  idea 
of  the  intense  feeling  which  filled  the  minds  of  almost  all  men — 
North  and  South — on  this  subject.  The  popular  sentiment  was 
deeply  and  vindictively  pro-slavery.  It  pervaded  all  classes  and 


THE  YAN  ZANDT   CASE.  53 

all  professions.  It  colored  legislation,  administration,  and  even 
judicial  decisions.  It  was  a  sort  of  frenzy  which  allowed  no 
heresy  in  respect  of  its  idol. 

In  1842  a  slave-case  surrounded  by  circumstances  of  dramatic 
interest  happened  in  Hamilton  County,  Ohio,  which  excited  a 
wide  and  profound  attention. 

John  Van  Zandt,  who  is  the  original  of  John  Yan  Trompe 
in  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  was  an  old  man ;  a  Kentuckian,  who 
had  emigrated  from  that  State  into  Ohio;  a  member  of  the 
Methodist  Church,  uneducated  but  large-hearted ;  a  friend  of 
the  slaves ;  who  by  hard  work  and  thrift  had  secured  a  small 
farm  in  the  vicinity  of  Cincinnati.  He  was  an  abolitionist 
from  principle  and  sympathy.  He  believed  slaveholding  to  be 
wrong,  and  his  kindly  nature  was  prompt  to  succor  the  dis 
tressed,  and  found  especial  gratification  in  aiding  the  escape  of 
fugitive  slaves. 

On  the  night  of  Friday,  the  22d  of  April,  nine  slaves  escaped 
from  Kentucky  into  Ohio.  Probably  they  escaped  without  the 
aid  of  other  persons.  But  they  found  friends  on  the  Ohio  side 
of  the  river ;  and  the  next  day,  when  Yan  Zandt  was  returning 
home  from  Cincinnati,  these  nine  fugitives — among  them  a  hus 
band  and  wife  and  their  three  children — were  found  by  him  in 
the  road.  The  wife  was  the  daughter  of  an  aged  couple  of  black 
persons  living  near  Cincinnati,  who  had  once  been  slaves ;  who 
had  grown  old  and  infirm,  while  of  their  ten  children  not  one 
was  permitted  to  be  the  companion  of  their  declining  years,  for 
all  were  slaves  in  slave  States.  Moved  by  sympathy,  Yan  Zandt 
undertook  to  carry  them  some  distance  in  his  wagon.  One  of 
the  slaves,  Andrew,  acted  as  driver. 

About  fifteen  or  sixteen  miles  north  of  Cincinnati,  on  the 
public  road  and  in  broad  daylight,  two  bold  villains,  Hargraves 
and  Hefferman,  with  the  help  of  some  other  persons  of  like 
character,  violently  stopped  the  travelers,  and  succeeded  in  secur 
ing  all  the  fugitives  except  two :  Andrew  the  driver,  and  another, 
who  escaped.  One  of  these  subsequently  returned  to  Kentucky. 
The  slaves  were  put  into  a  wagon,  and  without  authority  from 
any  claimant,  without  any  knowledge  to  whom  the  alleged  slaves 
belonged,  or  indeed  any  certain  knowledge  that  they  were 
slaves  at  all,  and  without  resort  to  legal  proceedings  of  any  kind, 


54  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

they  were  carried  to  Covington,  Kentucky,  and  there  lodged 
in  jail. 

Hargraves  and  Hefferman  and  their  associates  received  as  a 
reward  for  this  shameful  business  four  hundred  and  fifty  dollars ; 
but  were  indicted  for  kidnapping  by  the  grand-jury  of  Warren 
County,  where  the  act  was  committed.  Hargraves  and  Heffer- 
man  kept  out  of  the  way  of  trial ;  but  the  other  offenders  were 
acquitted,  as  much  by  public  sentiment  as  by  the  jury. 

The  owner  of  the  slaves,  Wharton  Jones,  sued  Yan  Zandt 
for  damages,  under  the  Federal  statute  of  1793,  for  harboring 
and  concealing  a  fugitive  slave. 

Mr.  Chase  was  called  upon  and  willingly  consented  to  conduct 
the  defense.  Associated  with  him  was  Thomas  Morris.  The 
trial  was  heard  before  Justice  McLean,  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  at  Cincinnati,  in  July,  1842. 

The  defense  did  not  deny  the  facts  as  above  stated ;  but  the 
evidence  of  the  plaintiff  having  been  submitted,  a  motion  was 
made  by  Mr.  Morris  to  overrule  it,  upon  the  ground  that  admit 
ting  all  the  facts  proved,  they  established  no  case  of  unlawful 
harboring  or  concealment,  and  no  notice  to  the  defendant  that 
the  alleged  fugitives  had  escaped  from  Kentucky  into  Ohio. 
What  constituted  notice  within  the  meaning  of  the  statute  was 
the  point  upon  which  both  the  defendant's  counsel  elaborately 
dwelt.  Mr.  Chase's  argument  occupied  nearly  three  hours  in 
delivery,  and  was  listened  to  with  a  profound  interest  by  a  dense 
ly-crowded  audience.  At  some  points  it  was  marked  by  a  noble 
eloquence  ;  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  his  defense 
of  Yan  Zandt  was  not  upon  the  ground  simply  that  the  generous 
old  man  had  done  no  wrong,  but  upon  the  higher  and  better  one 
that  his  act  was  warranted  by  Christian  charity — for  it  seems  no 
denial  was  made  that  Yan  Zandt  believed  that  the  persons  he 
carried  in  his  wagon  were  fugitives  from  slavery.  Mr.  Chase 
sought  to  establish  the  proposition  that  in  order  to  charge  a  citi 
zen  of  Ohio  with  the  penalties  denounced  by  the  fugitive  slave 
act  against  harboring  and  concealing  persons  escaping  from  sla 
very,  there  must  be  proof  of  actual  notice  to  the  person  charged 
that  the  objects  of  his  charity  had  escaped  from  a  slave  State  into 
the  State  where  he  received  them.  The  words  of  the  fugitive 
slave  act  itself  were  express  that  to  create  a  liability  to  penalty, 


THE  VAN  ZANDT  CASE.  55 

the  acts  charged  must  be  "  after  notice,"  and  he  contended  that 
the  words  after  notice  must  be  taken  to  mean  notice  by  the 
claimant  of  the  fact  of  escape,  or  at  least  some  actual  notice 
given  with  a  view  to  charge  the  person  notified.  Mr.  Chase  was 
confident  he  had  established  his  propositions,  but  the  court  over 
ruled  the  motion,  and  the  case  went  to  the  jury,  and  a  verdict 
was  rendered  against  Yan  Zandt,  and  damages  awarded  to  Whar- 
ton  Jones  to  the  amount  of  twelve  hundred  dollars. 

Mr.  Chase  then  made  a  motion  for  a  new  trial,  and  another 
for  arrest  "of  judgment.  These  motions  were  argued  together. 
The  judge  did  not  decide  the  motion  in  arrest,  but  in  the  course 
•of  his  opinion  upon  the  other  motion,  stated  principles  which 
would  necessarily  decide  that  motion  in  favor  of  the  defendant. 
Mr.  Chase  did  not  press  the  motion  in  arrest  further  at  that  time, 
uor  did  he  take  the  new  trial. 

Besides  the  suit  for  damages,  an  action  had  been  prosecuted 
against  Yan  Zandt  to  recover  the  penalty  of  five  hundred  dol 
lars  given  by  the  act  of  1793.  In  this  action,  as  in  the  other, 
the  verdict  was  for  Jones.  Several  questions  which  arose  during 
the  prosecution,  and  several  questions  which  arose  upon  the  mo 
tion  for  arrest  of  judgment  in  this  case,  were  carried  to  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  for  a  final  decision.  Mr. 
Chase  preferred  to  await  the  decision  upon  those  questions  before 
determining  what  course  he  should  pursue  in  relation  to  -the  ver 
dict  for  damages. 

At  the  December  term,  1846,  the  cause  was  argued  upon  the 
certified  questions,  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States.  James  T.  Morehead,  United  States  Senator  from  Ken 
tucky,  appeared  for  Wharton  Jones,  and  Governor  Seward  and 
Mr.  Chase  for  Yan  Zandt.  The  case  was  reached  sooner  than 
was  expected  by  Mr.  Chase  (growing  out  of  a  misunderstanding), 
and  at  his  instance  a  postponement  was  asked.  The  court  de 
nied  it,  but  consented  to  receive  written  arguments  if  presented 
within  fifteen  days.  This  was  a  brief  period  within  which  to 
present  such  an  argument  in  writing,  but  before  the  time  expired 
it  was  prepared  and  submitted. 

In  this  celebrated  argument — said  by  an  eminent  scholar  and 
statesman  to  be,  in  his  judgment,  the  greatest  effort  ever  made 
before  the  Supreme  Court — Mr.  Chase  discussed  these  four  ques- 


56  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

tions :  1.  What  are  the  requisites  of  notice  under  the  fugitive 
slave  act  of  1793  ?  2.  What  acts  constitute  the  offense  of  har 
boring  or  concealing  under  the  statute  ?  3.  "Whether  the  act  of 
1793  be  consistent  with  the  provisions  of  the  Ordinance  of  13th 
July,  1T87  ?  4.  Whether  the  act  of  1793  be  not  repugnant  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  ? 

"  I  beg  leave  to  submit  to  your  consideration,"  he  said  at 
opening,  "  an  argument  in  behalf  of  an  old  man  who  is  charged, 
under  the  act  of  Congress  of  February  12,  1793,  with  having 
concealed  and  harbored  a  fugitive  slave. 

"  Oppressed,  and  welhiigh  borne  down  by  the  painful  con 
sciousness,  that  the  principles  and  positions  which  it  will  be  my 
duty  to  maintain,  can  derive  no  credit  from  the  reputation  of  the 
advocate,  I  have  spared  no  pains  in  gathering  around  them  what 
ever  of  authority  and  argument  the  most  careful  research  and 
the  most  deliberate  reflection  could  supply.  I  have  sought  in 
struction  wherever  I  could  find  it ;  I  have  looked  into  the  re 
ported  decisions  of  almost  all  the  State  courts  and  of  this  court ; 
I  have  examined  and  compared  State  legislation  and  Federal ; 
above  all,  I  have  consulted  the  Constitution  of  the  Union,  and 
the  history  of  its  formation  and  adoption.  I  have  done  this, 
because  I  am  well  assured  that  the  issues  now  presented  to  this 
court  for  solemn  adjudication,  reach  to  whatever  is  dear  in  con 
stitutional  liberty  and  whatever  is  precious  in  political  union. 
"Not  John  Yan  Zandt  alone,  not  numerous  individuals  only,  but 
the  States  also,  and  the  nation  itself,  must  be  deeply  affected  by 
the  decision  to  be  pronounced  in  this  case.  I  ask,  therefore — 
and  the  character  of  this  venerable  court  strongly  assures  me 
I  shall  not  ask  in  vain — for  a  deliberate,  unprejudiced,  and 
thorough  examination  of  the  several  positions  I  shall  assume,  and 
of  the  reasonings  and  arguments  by  which  they  are  defended. 

"  I  shall  discuss  the  issue  presented  by  the  record  with  free 
dom  and  with  earnestness ;  but  I  shall  advance  nothing  in  the 
character  of  a  mere  advocate  bound  to  his  cause  only  by  his 
retainer.  When  great  questions,  affecting  the  most  sacred  rights 
of  the  people  and  the  most  delicate  relations  of  the  States  and  the 
most  important  duties  of  the  Government,  are  to  be  presented 
before  a  tribunal  clothed  with  the  awful  responsibility  of  final 
decision,  it  ill  becomes  a  lawyer,  called  to  bear  a  part  in  the 


THE  VAN  ZANDT  CASE.  57 

discussion,  to  strive  for  victory  in  disputation  or  the  triumph 
of  a  side.  I  shall  do  no  such  violence  to  my  own  convictions  of 
right  and  duty,  as  to  urge  here  any  argument  or  statement  for 
which  I  am  not  willing  to  be  held  responsible  as  a  citizen  and  a 
man. 

•  •  •  •  « If  what  I  urge  has  not  the  sanction  of  reason  and 
truth,  let  it  be  condemned  :  if  it  has,  I  trust  it  will  prevail — I 
am  sure  it  will  ultimately  prevail — whatever  opinion  and  au 
thority  may  stand  in  the  way.  Opinion  and  authority  may  stand 
for  law,  but  do  not  always  represent  the  law.  There  was  a 
time,  and  a  long  time,  when  opinion  and  authority  condemned 
as  rash  the  doctrine  that  juries  possess  the  right  to  determine,  in 
libel-cases,  not  merely  the  question  of  publishing,  but  the  general 
question  of  libel  or  no  libel ;  and  yet  the  earlier  advocates  of  the 
doctrine  lived  to  see  it  established  as  law.  So  for  many  years 
opinion  and  authority  sanctioned  the  doctrine  that  slaves  might 
be  held  in  England ;  but  after  thorough  investigation  this  doc 
trine  was  overthrown,  and  that  maxim  so  fraught  with  important 
results,  established,  that  slavery  is  strictly  local,  and  cannot  be 
extended  beyond  the  territorial  limits  of  the  State  allowing  it. 

"  Encouraged  by  these  recollections,  and  assured  of  the  dis 
position  of  the  court  to  ascertain  and  declare  the  law,  whatever 
it  may  be,  I  shall  proceed  to  state  the  facts  out  of  which  the 
questions  before  the  court  have  arisen." 

After  a  careful  and  exhaustive  discussion  of  the  first  two 
questions  proposed  by  him,  Mr.  Chase  proceeded  to  a  considera 
tion  of  the  third  and  fourth ;  and  from  his  arguments  upon  them 
some  extracts  are  subjoined : 

"  At  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War,"  he  said,  "  the  Con 
gress  of  the  United  States  claimed  the  territory  west  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  as  a  country  conquered  from  Great  Britain,  to  be  held 
and  disposed  for  the  joint  benefit  of  all  the  States.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  same  territory  was  claimed  by  several  States,  ate  belong 
ing  wholly  or  in  part  exclusively  to  them. 

"  These  conflicting  claims  were  adjusted  wholly  by  compro 
mise,  in  the  result  of  which  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
obtained  undisputed  possession  of  the  region  northwest  of  the 
Ohio,  and  proceeded  to  provide  for  a  temporary  government, 
for  the  organization  of  States,  and  for  the  permanent  establish- 


58  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

ment  of  certain  great  fundamental  principles,  as  the  immutable 
basis  of  all  laws,  constitutions,  and  governments,  within  the  terri 
tory. 

"  The  Ordinance  of  1787  was  designed  to  accomplish  these 
interesting  objects.  It  was  almost  the  last  work  of  the  Congress 
of  the  Confederation ;  that  illustrious  body,  whose  wisdom,  forti 
tude,  magnanimity  and  devotion  to  freedom,  attracted  and  still 
attract  the  general  homage  of  mankind  ;  and  among  all  its 
splendid  titles  to  honor  and  veneration,  none  shine  brighter  than 
this  great  act.  It  lies  at  the  very  foundation  of  the  institutions 
of  the  free  Northwest ;  and  in  all  time  to  come  it  will  be,  as  in 
time  past  it  has  been,  regarded  reverently  as  the  source  and  safe 
guard  of  its  prosperity  and  power. 

"  The  power  of  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation  to  estab 
lish  this  ordinance  has  sometimes  been  drawn  in  question,  but 
never  with  success.  The  Congress  of  the  Confederation  repre 
sented  the  United  States  in  carrying  on  the  war  with  Great 
Britain,  and,  in  that  capacity,  might  doubtless  hold  all  acquisi 
tions  made  by  conquest  from  the  coinmon  enemy,  for  the  general 
benefit  of  all  the  States.  The  country  west  of  the  Alleghanies 
was  an  acquisition  so  made.  The  right  of  the  United  States 
thus  acquired  was  confirmed  by  the  cession  to  the  States  of  the 
whole  vast  territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio.  The  title  thus 
acquired  and  thus  confirmed,  was  held  by  the  United  States  in 
trust  for  the  benefit  of  the  several  States,  subject  to  certain  con 
ditions  in  the  deeds  of  cession.  In  the  execution  of  this  trust 
Congress  proceeded  to  promulgate  and  establish  the  Ordinance 
of  1787 ;  and  it  cannot  be  doubted,  it  seems  to  me,  that  holding 
the  proprietary  title  in  the  land,  and  complete  jurisdiction  over 
the  territory  in  every  respect,  Congress  had  a  perfect  right  to 
prescribe  conditions  of  settlement  within  the  territory,  and  estab 
lish  principles  to  which  all  laws  and  constitutions  established 
within  it  should  conform ;  provided  only  that  these  conditions 
and  .principles  should  not  be  incompatible  with  the  great  ends  in 
view — the  common  benefit  of  all  the  States,  and  the  creation 
and  admission  into  the  Union  of  new  States  upon  equal  footing 
with  the  original  States. 

"  Accordingly,  the  ordinance,  after  making  various  temporary 
provisions,  proceeded  to  announce  certain  articles  of  compact 


THE  VAN  ZANDT  CASE.  59 

between  the  original  States  and  the  people  and  States  in  the 
territory,  and  declared  that  they  should  REMAIN  FOREVER  UNAL 
TERABLE  unless  by  common  consent.  These  articles  established 
the  inviolability  of  contracts,  the  sacredness  of  personal  liberty, 
and  the  entire  freedom  of  conscience.  They  recognized  and 
enforced  the  duty  of  Government  to  foster  schools  and  diffuse 
knowledge.  They  declared  the  navigable  rivers  of  the  territory 
to  be  highways  and  forever  free  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  terri 
tory,  and  to  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  and  of  any  other 
States  that  might  be  afterward  admitted;  they  enjoined  the 
observance  of  good  faith  toward  the  Indians,  and  the  perform 
ance  toward  them  of  those  acts  of  kindness  and  peace  which 
should  ever  adorn  the  intercourse  of  the  mighty  with  the  weak ; 
and  finally,  that  nothing  should  be  omitted  which  might  be 
thought  justly  to  belong  to  an  instrument  providing  for  the 
creation  of  free  States,  they  declared  that  'there  should  be 
neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  within  the  territory, 
otherwise  than  in  the  punishment  of  crimes.' 

"  The  great  object  of  these  provisions  was  explicitly  declared. 
It  was  to  f  extend  the  fundamental  principles  of  civil  and  reli 
gious  liberty,  which  form  the  basis  whereon  these  republics, 
their  laws  and  constitutions,  are  erected;  to  fix  and  establish 
these  principles  as  the  basis  of  all  laws,  constitutions  and  gov 
ernments,  which,  forever  hereafter,  shall  be  f ormed  in  said  terri 
tory  ;  to  provide  also  for  the  establishment  of  States  and  perma 
nent  governments  therein,  and  for  their  admission  to  a  share 
in  the  Federal  councils,  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  original 
States.' 

"  I  know  not  that  history  records  a  sublimer  act  than  this. 
The  United  States,  having  just  brought  their  perilous  struggle 
for  freedom  and  independence  to  a  successful  issue,  proceeded  to 
declare  the  terms  and  conditions  on  which  their  vacant  territory 
might  be  settled  and  organized  into  States;  and  these  terms 
were — not  tribute,  not  render  of  service,  not  subordination  of 
any  kind — but  the  perpetual  maintenance  of  the  genuine  prin 
ciples  of  American  liberty ;  and  that  these  principles  might  be 
inviolably  maintained,  they  were  made  the  articles  of  a  solemn 
covenant  between  the  original  States,  then  the  proprietors  of  the 
territory  and  responsible  for  its  future  destiny,  and  the  people 


60  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

and  the  States  who  were  to  occupy  it.  Every  settler  within  the 
territory,  by  the  very  act  of  settlement,  became  a  party  to  this 
compact,  bound  by  its  perpetual  obligations,  and  entitled  to  the 
full  benefit  of  its  excellent  provisions  for  himself  and  his  pos 
terity.  No  subsequent  act  of  the  original  States  could  affect  it 
without  his  consent.  No  act  of  his,  nor  of  the  people  of  the 
territory,  nor  of  the  States  established  within  it,  could  affect  it 
without  the  consent  of  the  original  States. 

"  The  ordinance  was  not  adopted  upon  any  sudden  impulse. 
It  was  a  deliberate,  well-considered  act,  and  it  received  the  unan 
imous  assent  of  the  States.  There  was  not  even  a  single  nega 
tive  from  any  delegate  of  any  State,  except  that  of  one  member 
from  New  York. 

"  There  can  be*,  in  my  judgment,  no  ground  whatever,  for 
saying  that  at  any  time,  before  the  organization  of  State  govern 
ments  within  the  territory,  these  articles  of  compact  were  in  any 
respect  changed.  They  could  not  be  affected  by  the  adoption  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  for  that  was  the  act  of  the 
people  of  the  original  States,  to  which  the  people  of  the  territory 
were  in  no  sense  parties.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
neither  did,  nor  could,  of  itself  and  without  the  consent  of  the 
people  and  States  of  the  territory,  repeal,  impair,  abridge  or 
alter  the  terms  of  the  compact.  It  left  them,  as  it  found  them, 
in  the  full  force  of  their  original  obligation. 

"  Nor  was  it  supposed  by  anybody,  at  the  time  of  the  adop 
tion  of  the  Constitution,  that  it  impaired  the  full  effect  of  the 
ordinance.  This  is  manifest  from  the  express  terms  of  the  act 
to  provide  for  the  government  of  the  territory  northwest  of  the 
Ohio  Kiver,  passed  at  the  first  session  of  the  First  Congress 
under  the  Constitution.  The  object  of  that  act  was  declared  in 
its  preamble  to  be,  <  that  the  Ordinance  of  1787  MAY  CONTINUE 
TO  HAVE  FULL  EFFECT.'  It  confirmed  the  temporary  arrange 
ments  of  the  territorial  government  to  the  action  of  the  new 
national  Government. 

"  Nor  did  the  admission  of  the  State  of  Kentucky  into  the 
Union  in  1792  affect  the  compact ;  for  that  was  an  act  between 
the  States,  represented  by  Congress,  and  the  people  of  Ken 
tucky,  represented  by  their  convention,  with  which  the  people 
of  the  territory  had  no  concern. 


THE  VAN  ZANDT  CASE.  Gl 

"  When  the  State  of  Ohio  came  into  the  Union  in  1802,  it 
was  under  the  provisions  of  an  act  of  Congress  which  contained 
an  express  proviso  that  the  constitution  of  the  new  State  should 
6  be  republican  and  NOT  REPUGNANT  to  the  Ordinance  of  1T8T 
between  the  original  States  and  the  people  and  States  of  the  ter 
ritory.' 

"  The  constitution  of  Ohio  was  framed  in  accordance  with 
these  provisions.  The  convention  of  the  people  of  the  territory, 
incorporated  into  the  constitution  of  the  new  State  the  leading 
principles  of  the  ordinance  ;  thereby  claiming  for  the  people  of 
Ohio  the  benefit  of  those  provisions ;  recognizing  their  perpet 
ual  obligation  and  imparting  to  them  an  additional  sanction. 
The  interdict  against  slavery  was  transferred  to  the  constitu 
tion  in  the  very  words  of  the  ordinance  ;  and,  as  if  to  manifest 
as  plainly  as  possible  the  sense  of  the  people  on  this  subject,  an 
additional  provision  was  inserted,  declaring  that ( no  alteration 
of  the  constitution  shall  EVER  take  place,  so  as  to  introduce  sla 
very  or  involuntary  servitude  into  this  State.' 

"  Ohio  in  truth  came  into  the  Union  not  so  much  in  virtue 
of  any  act  of  Congress  consenting  to  her  admission,  as  in  vir 
tue  of  a  right  secured  to  her  by  the  ordinance,  and  which  could 
not  have  been  denied  to  her  without  a  flagrant  breach  of  faith. 
The  ordinance  itself  provided  for  the  erection  of  States  within 
the  territory ;  and  authorized  such  States  to  form  permanent 
.constitutions  and  State  governments;  and  stipulated  for  their 
admission,  by  their  delegates,  into  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  upon  the  single  condition  that  the  constitution  and  gov 
ernment  so  to  be  formed  should  be  republican,  and  in  conform 
ity  with  the  principles  contained  in  the  compact.  The  terri 
torial  limits  of  Ohio  were  defined  by  the  ordinance,  subject  to 
the  right  of  Congress  to  form  one  or  two  States  out  of  that  part 
of  the  northwestern  territory  lying  north  of  an  east  and  west 
line  through  the  southern  bend  or  extreme  of  Lake  Michigan. 
It  was  the  right  of  the  people  within  the  limits  thus  defined,  to 
form  their  State  government  and  come  into  the  Union  when 
ever  the  number  of  inhabitants  should  reach  sixty  thousand ; 
and  earlier  if  consistent  with  the  general  interests  of  the  Confed 
eracy.  And  as  it  was  then  their  right  to  come  in  under  the  ordi 
nance,  and  as  it  was  by  that  instrument^  made  their  duty  to 


MFNIVERSITT 

^v^.    QAJ  (crsBMlA*    ^S 


62  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

frame  their  government  and  constitution  in  accordance  with  the 
articles  of  compact,  it  seems  impossible  to  maintain  that  by  the 
act  of  entering  the  Union,  any  of  those  articles  could  be 
abridged,  impaired,  or  in  any  way  modified,  Certainly  the  evi 
dence  of  intention  both  on  the  part  of  the  people  of  the  State 
and  of  the  United  States,  that  the  articles  of  compact  should 
stand  unchanged,  is  full  and  complete. 

"  Ohio,  then,  came  into  the  Union  with  the  ordinance  in  her 
right  hand.  Her  constitution  did  not  supersede  the  ordinance  ; 
but  on  the  contrary  reaffirmed  most  of  its  provisions,  and  pro 
mulgated  them  anew  as  '  great  and  essential  principles  of  lib 
erty  and  free  government,'  to  be  <  forever  unalterably  estab 
lished,'  for  the  benefit  of  the  people  of  the  State.  And  it  is 
quite  true  that  most  of  the  principles  established  by  the  ordi 
nance,  for  all  time  as  fundamental  law,  are  nothing  else  than 
the  principles  of  natural  right  and  justice ;  the  obligation  of 
which,  though  it  may  be  recognized  and  enforced  by  compact,  is 
derived  not  from  any  agreement  or  consent,  but  from  the  essen 
tial  constitution  of  man  and  society. 

....  "The  Government  of  the  United  States  has  noth 
ing  whatever  to  do,  directly,  with  slavery.  It  may  indeed,  and 
does,  recognize  legal  and  political  rights  growing  out  of  the 
condition  of  certain  persons,  under  the  laws  of  the  States,  but 
it  cannot,  consistently  with  the  letter  or  spirit  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  regard  these  persons  as  slaves.  Under  the  Constitution  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States  are,  without  exception,  per 
sons — persons,  it  may  be,  not  free — persons,  held  to  service — per 
sons,  who  may  migrate  or  be  imported — but  still,  persons,  clothed, 
so  far  as  the  Constitution  is  concerned,  with  those  highest 
attributes  of  personality  which  belong,  of  right  and  equally, 
unless  the  Declaration  of  Independence  be  a  fable,  to  all  men. 
The  Constitution  takes  notice  indeed,  of  persons  held,  under  the 
laws  of  the  States,1  in  peculiar  relations ;  but  it  takes  notice 
of  such  persons  by  its  own  descriptions,  and  by  those  which 
State  laws  furnish.  It  knows  no  slaves. 

"  What  is  a  slave  ?  I  know  no  definition  shorter  or  more 
complete  than  this :  A  slave  is  a  person  held  as  property,  by 
legalized  force,  against  natural  right.  Slavery  is  the  condition 
in  which  men  are  thus  held.  The  law  which  enables  one  man 


THE  VAN  ZANDT  CASE.  63 

to  hold  liis  fellow-man  as  a  slave,  making  the  private  force  of 
the  individual  efficient  for  that  purpose  by  aid  of  the  public 
force  of  the  community,  must  necessarily  be  local  and  munici 
pal  in  its  character.  It  cannot,  speaking  with  strict  accuracy, 
make  men  property,  for  man  is  not  by  Nature  the  subject  of 
ownership.  It  can  only  determine  that  within  the  sphere  of  its 
operation,  certain  of  the  people  may  be  held  and  treated  as 
property  by  others.  It  can  punish  resistance  to  the  authority 
of  the  master,  and  compel  submission  to  his  disposal.  .  .  . 

"  The  law  of  the  Creator,  which  invests  every  human  being 
with  an  inalienable  title  to  freedom,  cannot  be  repealed  by  any 
inferior  law  which  asserts  that  man  is  property.  Such  a  law 
may  be  enforced  by  power  ;  but  the  exercise  of  the  power  must 
be  confined  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  State  which  estab 
lishes  the  law.  It  cannot  be  enforced — it  can  have  no  opera 
tion  whatever — in  any  other  jurisdiction.  The  very  moment  a 
slave  passes  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  the  State  in  which  he  is 
held  as  such,  he  ceases  to  be  a  slave ;  not  because  any  law  or 
regulation  of  the  State  which  he  enters  confers  freedom  upon 
him,  but  because  he  continues  to  be  a  man,  and  leaves  behind 
him  the  law  of  force  which  made  him  a  slave.  Even  if  the 
slave  passes  from  one  slave  State  into  another,  he  is  not  held  as 
a  slave  in  the  State  to  which  he  comes  by  the  law  of  the  State 
which  he  has  left.  So  far  as  the  law  is  concerned,  he  is  free ; 
for  he  is  beyond  its  reach.  .  .  . 

"  If  I  am  correct,  then,  in  the  position  that  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  cannot,  under  the  Constitution,  create,  con 
tinue,  or  enforce  any  such  relation  as  that  of  owner  and  prop 
erty,  or  what  is  under  the  slave-codes  the  same  thing,  of  master 
and  slave,  between  man  and  man,  it  must  follow  that  no  claim 
to  persons  as  property  can  be  maintained,  under  any  clause  of 
the  Constitution,  or  any  law  of  the  United  States. 

.  .  .  .  "  The  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  continued  in 
the  amendments,  like  the  provisions  of  the  ordinance,  contained 
in  the  articles  of  the  compact,  were  mainly  designed  to  estab 
lish  as  written  law  certain  great  principles  of  natural  right  and 
justice,  which  exist  independently  of  all  such  sanction.  They 
rather  announce  restrictions  upon  legislative  power  imposed  by 
the  very  nature  of  society  and  of  government,  than  create 


64  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

restrictions  which,  were  they  erased  from  the  Constitution,  the 
Legislature  would  be  at  liberty  to  disregard.  No  Legislature  is 
omnipotent.  No  Legislature  can  make  right,  wrong ;  or  wrong? 
right.  Nor  is  any  Legislature  at  liberty  to  disregard  the  funda 
mental  principles  of  rectitude  and  justice.  "Whether  restrained 
or  not  by  any  constitutional  provisions,  there  are  acts  beyond 
any  legitimate  or  binding  legislative  authority.  There  are  cer 
tain  vital  principles  in  our  national  Government  which  will 
ascertain  and  overrule  an  apparent  and  flagrant  abuse  of  legis 
lative  power.  The  Legislature  cannot  authorize  injustice  by 
law ;  cannot  nullify  private  contracts  ;  cannot  abrogate  the  secu 
rities  of  life,  liberty  and  property,  which  it  is  the  very  object  of 
society,  as  well  as  of  our  constitution  of  government,  to  provide ; 
cannot  make  a  man  judge  in  his  own  case ;  cannot  repeal  the 
laws  of  Nature ;  cannot  create  any  obligation  to  do  wrong  or 
neglect  duty.  No  court  is  bound  to  enforce  unjust  law ;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  every  court  is  bound,  by  prior  and  superior 
obligations,  to  abstain  from  enforcing  such  law.  .  .  . 

"  It  is  the  maxim  of  the  common  law  that  he  who  will  not 
favor  liberty  shall  be  accursed.  ( Execrandus,  qui  non  fwvet 
libertati ! '  The  courts  of  England,  ever  presuming,  in  obe 
dience  to  this  maxim,  in  favor  of  freedom,  extinguished  villeinage 
and  established  an  impregnable  barrier  against  the  introduction 
of  a  new  slavery.  May  I  not  trust  that  the  favor  shown  to 
liberty  by  the  courts  of  the  chief  monarchy  of  Europe,  will  not 
surpass  that  which  liberty  will  receive  from  the  courts  of  the 
chief  republic  of  America  ? 

•  •  •  •  "  Upon  questions — such  as  are  some  -of  those  involved 
in  this  case — which  partake  largely  of  a  moral  and  political 
nature,  the  judgment  even  of  this  court  cannot  be  regarded  as 
altogether  final.  The  decision  to  be  made  here,  must  necessarily 
be  rejudged  at  the  tribunal  of  public  opinion ;  the  opinion,  not 
of  the  American  people  only,  but  of  the  civilized  world.  At 
home,  as  is  well  known,  a  growing  disaffection  to  the  Constitu 
tion  prevails,  founded  upon  its  supposed  allowance  and  support 
of  human  slavery ;  abroad,  the  national  character  suffers  under 
the  same  reproach.  I  hope,  and— I  trust  it  may  not  be  too 
serious  to  add — Inmost  earnestly  pray,  that  the  judgment  of  the 
court  in  this  case  may  commend  itself  to  the  reason  and  con- 


THE  VAN  ZANDT  CASE.         .  65 

science  of  mankind ;  that  it  may  rescue  the  Constitution  from 
the  undeserved  opprobrium  of  lending  its  sanction  to  the  idea 
that  there  may  be  property  in  men ;  that  it  may  gather  around 
that  venerable  charter  of  republican  freedom  the  renewed  affec 
tion  and  confidence  of  a  generous  people ;  and  that  it  may  win 
for  American  institutions  the  warm  admiration  and  homage  of 
all,  who,  everywhere,  love  liberty  and  revere  justice." 

With  this  noble  invocation  Mr.  Chase  closed  his  argument. 
The  judgment  of  the  court  was  adverse  to  Yan  Zandt  upon  all 
points. 

When  the  certificate  of  these  decisions  was  presented  in  the 
Circuit  Court,  final  judgment  for  the  penalty  was  of  course 
entered. 

Mr.  Chase  then  moved  in  arrest  of  the  judgment  in  the  suit 
for  damages,  but  the  judge,  pending  the  suit  in  the  Supreme 
Court,  had  changed  his  position  on  the  controlling  points,  and 
the  decision  was  again  adverse.  •  Mr.  Chase  then  proposed  to 
accept  the  new  trial  upon  the  terms  of  the  order  already  made, 
but  upon  this  question  the  opinion  of  the  court  had  also  changed ! 
and  judgment  was  entered  against  Yan  Zandt  for  twelve  hun 
dred  dollars  damages,  as  well  as  the  penalty  in  the  sum  of  five 
hundred  dollars. 

The  character  of  Judge  McLean  is  unquestioned,  but  in  the 
absence  of  the  universal  pro-slavery  sentiment  of  the  times,  it  is 
not  improbable  that  his  decision  would  have  been  different. 

The  services  both  of  Mr.  Chase  and  Governor  Seward  (who 
also  submitted  a  written  argument)  in  behalf  of  Yan  Zandt  were 
given  without  compensation.  A  small  sum  was  contributed  by 
antislavery  men  for  the  actual  expenses  of  the  defense,  but  it 
was  not  sufficient  even  for  that  purpose. 

Yan  Zandt  suffered  severely  by  these  events.  He  is  long 
since  dead,  and  the  final  judgment  has  been  entered  in  his  cause 
by  that  awful  and  just  Judge  with  whom  humanity  is  certainly 
no  crime.1 

1  Salmon  Portland  Chase  to  Lewis  Tappan. 

"CINCINNATI,  March  18, 1847. 

•  •  •  •  "  I  regret  the  decision  in  the  Yan  Zandt  case,  and,  I  confess,  did  not  expect 
it.    I  had  a  letter  from  a  very  intelligent  slaveholder,  to  whom  I  sent  a  copy  of  my 
argument,  in  which  he  was  frank  enough  to  say,  that  so  far  as  he  had  read  the 
5 


66  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

argument,  I  seemed  to  have  the  right  of  it ;  *  but,'  he  added,  '  you  seem  to  forget 
that  upon  these  questions  necessity  knows  no  law.'  I  do  not  know  that  I  ever 
mentioned  to  you,  that  when  I  had  concluded  my  argument  for  Van  Zandt  in  the 
Circuit  Court,  Jones,  the  plaintiff,  came  to  me,  though  an  entire  stranger  to  him, 
and  expressed  his  regret  that  the  suit  had  been  brought,  saying  that  he  had  been 
badly  advised  or  he  should  not .  have  commenced  it ;  so  fully  satisfied  was  he,  then? 
that  the  decision  of  Judge  McLean  must  be  against  him.  But  much  as  I  regret  the 
issue  of  the  case  in  the  Supreme  Court,  I  do  not  regret  that  the  discussion  has  been 
had,  and  I  am  thankful  I  have  had  some  part  in  it.  I  have  received  from  many 
and  very  different  political  quarters,  assurances  of  the  full  assent  of  the  writers  to 
the  leading  points  of  the  argument ;  and  I  am  well  satisfied  that  the  intelligent  judg 
ment  of  the  profession,  so  far  as  it  has  considered  the  case,  is  with  us. 

"  I  am  glad  to  see  that  Governor  Seward's  argument  has  been  given  to  the  public 
in  the  New  York  Tribune  in  a  condensed  form ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  gratifications, 
and  one  of  the  greatest  too,  that  I  have  derived  from  my  connection  with  the  case, 
that  it  has  brought  me  into  intercourse  with  that  gentleman.  I  regard  him  as  one 
of  the  very  first  public  men  of  our  country.  Who  but  himself  would  have  done 
what  he  did  for  the  poor  wretch  Freeman  ?  His  course  in  the  Van  Zandt  case  has 
been  generous  and  noble ;  but  his  action  in  the  Freeman  case,  considering  his  own 
personal  position  and  the  circumstances,  was  magnanimous  in  the  highest  de- 


CHAFTEK    X. 

STATE  ELECTION,  1842 — DIFFICULTIES  OF  THE   LIBERTY  PARTY  MOVE 
MENT NATIONAL     CONVENTION     OF     THE    LIBERTY    PARTY    AT 

BUFFALO  IN  1843 SOUTHERN  AND  WESTERN  LIBERTY  CONVEN 
TION     AT     CINCINNATI     IN     1845 A      GREAT     AND     IMPORTANT 

GATHERING THE   CASE   OF    SAMUEL   WATSON. 

THE  State  election  in  Ohio  in  1840  showed  the  strength  of  the 
antislavery  vote  to  be  nine  hundred  and  three ;  but  it  was 
a  vote  representing  the  unconditional  abolition  sentiment  of  the 
voters.  It  said  briefly,  and  without  circumlocution,  conceal 
ment,  or  reservation,  of  any  kind :  "  Slavery  must  be  over 
thrown.  ~No  matter  how  numerous  the  difficulties,  how  formi 
dable  the  obstacles,  how  strong  the  foes,  to  be  vanquished — 
slavery  must  cease  to  pollute  the  land.  No  matter  whether  the 
event  be  near  or  remote,  whether  the  task-master  willingly  or 
unwillingly  relinquish  his  arbitrary  power,  whether  by  a  peace 
ful  or  a  bloody  process — slavery  must  die.  ~No  matter  though, 
to  effect  it,  every  party  should  be  torn  by  dissensions,  every  sect 
dashed  into  fragments,  the  national  compact  dissolved,  the  land 
filled  with  the  horrors  of  a  civil  and  a  servile  war — still,  slavery 
must  be  buried  in  the  grave  of  infamy,  beyond  the  possibility  of 
a  resurrection.  If  the  state  cannot  survive  the  antislavery  agi 
tation,  then  let  the  state  perish.  If  the  Church  must  be  cast 
down  by  the  struggles  of  humanity  to  be  free,  then  let  the 
Church  fall,  and  its  fragments  be  scattered  to  the  four  winds  of 
heaven,  never  more  to  curse  the  earth.  If  the  American  Union 
cannot  be  maintained,  except  by  immolating  human  freedom  on 


68  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

the  altar  of  tyranny,  then  let  the  American  Union  be  consumed 
by  a  living  thunder-bolt,  and  no  tear  be  shed  over  its  ashes.  If 
the  republic  must  be  blotted  out  from  the  roll  of  nations,  by 
p-oclaiming  liberty  to  the  captives,  then  let  the  republic  sink 
beneath  the  waves  of  oblivion,  and  a  shout  of  joy,  louder  than 
the  voice  of  many  waters,  fill  the  universe  at  its  extinction. 
Against  this  declaration,  none  but  traitors  and  tyrants  will  raise 
an  outcry.  It  is  the  mandate  of  Heaven  and  the  voice  of  God. 
It  has  righteousness  for  its  foundation,  reason  for  its  authority, 
and  truth  for  its  support."  * 

Language  like  this,  addressed  to  the  temper  of  the  times, 
won  no  support  to  the  cause  of  antislavery  in  any  form,  but 
greatly  increased  its  difficulties.  The  public  sentiment  of  the 
country,  passionately  pro-slavery  from  causes  impossible  wholly 
to  be  explained,  and  all  the  more  intense  because  of  the  very 
obscurity  of  its  motives,  was  deepened  and  intensified,  if  that 
were  possible,  by  the  denunciations  and  violence  of  the  uncon 
ditional  antislavery  men.  The  writers  and  stumpers  of  the  old 
parties  made  an  adroit  and  effective  use  of  it ;  a  characteristic 
use,  since  every  antislavery  man  was  denounced  by  them  as  an 
abolitionist,  and  perforce  seditious,  a  violator  •  of  the  law,  an 
inciter  to  servile  insurrection  and  to  the  murder  of  women  and 
children.  Abolitionism  -was  made  a  synonym,  in  the  popular 
mind,  for  slave-insurrection  and  negro  equality,  equally  fearful 
and  abhorrent.  It  was  alleged  by  public  men — and  doubtless 
many  believed  it — that  abolitionism  would  lead  to  a  dissolution 
of  the  Union.  So  that  as  every  antislavery  man  was  charged 
with  being  an  abolitionist,  and  as  every  abolitionist  was-  repre 
sented  to  be  a  willful  promoter  of  negro  insurrection,  negro 
equality  and  disunion,  the  Liberty  party  received  but  a  scant  con 
sideration  among  the  voters  of  the  State. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the  movement  did  not 
attract  any  great  accessions ;  still  there  were  some,  and  the  vote 
for  Judge  King  in  October,  1842,  was  five  thousand  three  hun 
dred  and  five ;  a  good  deal  disappointing  the  expectations  of  Mr. 
Chase,  who  had  confidently  looked  forward  to  greater  results. 
His  hope  had  been  that  the  vote  would  be  sufficiently  large  to 
attract  into  the  Liberty  organization  some  leading  men,  acting 

1  Mr.  Williim  Lloyd  Garrison  in  The  Liberty  Bell,  1842. 


NATIONAL  LIBERTY  CONTENTION  OF  1843.  69 

with  the  other  parties,  but  of  known  antislavery  convictions. 
Disappointed  in  this,  however,  he  thought  to  make  accessions  by 
personal  appeals  to  leading  men  in  both  parties. 

But  he  was  unsuccessful.  Antislavery  "Whigs  preferred  the 
W  hig  party  organization,  and  antislavery  Democrats  preferred 
acting  with  the  Democratic  party;  the  "Whigs  professing  the 
belief  that  the  Whig  party  must  soon  take  the  constitutional 
antislavery  ground,  and  Democrats  professing  a  like  belief  with 
respect  to  the  Democratic  party.  But  neither  showed  much  dis 
position  to  sever  present  political  connections  to  take  part  in  a 
new  organization  whose  avowed  primary  ground  of  action  was 
antislavery. 

In  August,  1843,  a  National  Convention  of  the  Liberty  party 
met  at  Buffalo,  to  take  into  consideration  the  expediency  of  nom 
inating  candidates  for  the  presidency  and  vice-presidency.  Mr. 
Birney  and  Mr.  Thomas  Morris  had  already  been  put  in  nomina 
tion  by  those  who  had  voted  for  the  former  in  1840 ;  but  it  was 
thought  due  to  the  voters  who  had  since  joined  the  party,  that 
an  opportunity  should  be  given  for  reconsideration  and  the  sub 
stitution  of  other  names,  if  that  should  be  thought  expedient. 
There  were  nearly  a  thousand  delegates  in  attendance,  from  every 
free  State,  except  New  Hampshire ;  but  they  refused  either  to 
postpone  action  upon  nominations  until  the  next  year,  as  was 
proposed  by  Mr.  Chase,  or  to  make  any  change  in  candidates. 
Mr.  Birney  and  Mr.  Morris  were  accordingly  put  formally  into 
nomination,  almost,  if  not  altogether,  without  dissent. 

The  platform  adopted  by  the  convention  was  composed  of 
resolutions 1  almost  all  of  which  were  drawn  by  Mr.  Chase ;  the 
most  remarkable  exception  being  the  resolution  declaring  the 
fugitive  slave  law  clause  in  the  Constitution  not  binding  in  con 
science,  and  therefore  to  be  considered  as  mentally  excepted  in 
every  oath  taken  to  support  that  instrument.  It  was  impossible 
for  Mr.  Chase  to  give  his  sanction  to  this  doctrine  of  mental 
reservation,  and  in  the  committee-room  of  the  committee  on  reso 
lutions  his  efforts  to  defeat  it  had  been  successful,  but  being  pre 
sented  in  the  body  of  the  convention — though  probably  a  great 
majority  of  the  members  were  opposed  to  it — it  was  adopted 

1  It  is  not  deemed  necessary  to  reproduce  the  resolutions  of  the  Buffalo  Conven 
tion  ;  they  affirmed  the  doctrines  of  the  Liberty  party. 


70  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

under  the  excitement  occasioned  by  an  eloquent  speech  of  its 
proposer,1  who  began  with  the  question — "  Shall  we  obey  the 
dead  fathers  or  the  living  God  ? " 

The  presidential  election  took  place  in  the  following  year, 
and  Mr.  Birney  received  slightly  over  sixty-two  thousand  votes ; 
a  number  small  and  insignificant  when  considered  in  the  light 
merely  of  party  interests  and  success,  but  neither  small  nor  in 
significant  when  considered  in  its  relations  to  other  organizations 
and  party  policies.  In  1840  the  unorganized  vote  against  slavery 
had  been  only  one  in  three  hundred  and  sixty  of  the  whole  num 
ber  of  votes  given  by  the  people.  The  vote  given  for  the  Lib 
erty  party  in  1844  was  one  in  forty.  In  several  States,  and  in 
many  counties  and  cities,  it  was  sufficient — if  given  to  the  can 
didates  of  either  one  of  the  old  parties — to  determine  the  con 
test  in  their  favor.  This  was  in  itself  a  fact  of  great  importance 
and  gave  to  the  Liberty  organization  a  power  and  influence  very 
much  in  excess  really  of  what  would  have  been  warranted  by 
reason  of  mere  numbers.  It  was  a  necessary  political  consequence 
that,  holding  the  "  balance  of  power  "  in  many  important  locali 
ties,  both  the  old  parties,  wherever  such  a  course  could  be  adopted 
without  danger  of  alienating  their  pro-slavery  members,  made 
advances  toward  the  principles  and  measures  of  the  new  party ; 
and  so  long  as  it  inflexibly  maintained  its  organization  and  united 
with  no  party  having  and  desiring  to  have  a  pro-slavery  wing,  it 
widened  and  deepened  the  currents  of  antislavery  feeling. 

In  1845  the  Southern  and  Western  Liberty  Convention  was 
held  at  Cincinnati  on  the  llth  and  12th  days  of  June.  It  met 
in  pursuance  of  a  call  signed  by  Salmon  P.  Chase,  Samuel  Lewis, 
Eichard  B.  Pullan,  and  others,  and  addressed  to  the  "  friends 
of  constitutional  liberty."  "  It  is  not  designed,"  said  the  sign- 

1  The  words  of  the  resolution  referred  to,  which  was  introduced  into  the  conven 
tion  by  John  Pierpont,  a  Unitarian  clergyman  of  Massachusetts,  were  these:  "Re 
solved,  That  we  hereby  give  it  to  be  distinctly  understood  by  this  nation  and  the 
world,  that,  considering  the  strength  of  our  cause  to  lie  in  its  righteousness  and  our 
hopes  for  it  in  our  conformity  to  tne  laws  of  God  and  our  support  of  the  rights  of 
man,  we  owe  it  to  the  Sovereign  Ruler  of  the  Universe— as  a  proof  of  our  allegiance 
to  Him  in  all  our  civil  relations  and  offices,  whether  as  friends,  citizens  or  public 
functionaries,  sworn  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States — to  regard  ana 
treat  the  third  clause  of  the  instrument,  whenever  applied  in  the  case  of  a  fugitive 
slave,  as  utterly  null  and  void,  and  consequently  as  forming  no  part  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  whenever  we  are  catted  upon  as  sworn  to  support  it" 


WESTERN  LIBERTY   CONVENTION  OF   1845.  71 

ers  of  the  call,  "  that  this  convention  shall  be  composed,  exclu 
sively,  of  members  of  the  Liberty  party,  but  of  all  who, £  believ 
ing  that  whatever  is  worth  preserving  in  republicanism  can  be 
maintained  only  by  eternal  and  uncompromising  war  against 
the  criminal  usurpations  of  the  slave-power,'  are  resolved l  to  use 
all  constitutional,  and  honorable,  and  just  means,  to  effect  the 
extinction  of  slavery  in  their  respective  States,  and  its  reduction 
to  its  constitutional  limits  within  the  United  States."3  The 
whole  number  of  persons  in  attendance  upon  this  convention  as 
delegates  was  about  two  thousand ;  they  came  from  Ohio,  Indi 
ana,  Illinois  and  Michigan ;  from  the  Territories  of  Wisconsin 
and  Iowa ;  from  "Western  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia  and  Ken 
tucky.  Delegations  were  present  also  from  Massachusetts,  New 
York  and  Rhode  Island.  It  was  the  most  remarkable  gathering 
of  antislavery  men  that,  up  to  the  time  of  its  meeting,  had  been 
convened  in  the  country.  Its  sittings  were  continued  through 
two  days,  and  its  proceedings  were  distinguished  for  the  dignity 
and  solemnity  which  befitted  the  occasion  and  its  objects.  Mr. 
Chase  took  an  active  part,  and  was  the  author  of  its  "  Address 
to  the  People  of  the  United  States;"  a  characteristic  paper, 
clear,  temperate  and  judicial.  More  than  a  hundred  thousand 
copies  were  circulated  in  pamphlet  form ;  it  was  reproduced  in 
antislavery  newspapers,  and  freely  commented  upon  by  the  press 
of  the  Democratic  and  Whig  parties.  Its  effect  upon  the  public 
mind,  in  conjunction  with  current  political  events,  was  wide 
spread  and  important. 

"  The  Liberty  party,"  said  this  address,  "  founds  itself  upon 
the  great  cardinal  principles  of  true  democracy  and  of  true 
Christianity,  the  brotherhood  'of  the  human  family.  It  avows 
its  purpose  to  wage  implacable  war  against  slaveholding  as  the 
direst  form  of  oppression,  and  then  against  every  other  species 
of  tyranny  and  injustice.  Its  members  agree  to  regard  the  ex 
tinction  of  slavery  as  the  most  important  end  which  can,  at  this 
time,  be  proposed  to  political  action ;  and  they  agree  to  differ  as 
to  other  questions  of  minor  importance.  .  .  ." 

The  rise  of  such  a  party  as  this,  the  address  alleged,  met  the 
"  want  which  enlightened  lovers  of  liberty  felt,  of  a  real  demo 
cratic  party  in  the  country — democratic  not  in  name  only,  but 
in  deed  and  in  truth.  In  this  want,,  the  Liberty  party  had  its 


72  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

origin,  and  so  long  as  this  want  remains  otherwise  unsatisfied, 
the  Liberty  party  must  exist ;  not  as  a  mere  abolition  party,  but 
as  a  truly  democratic  party,1  which  aims  at  the  extinction  of 
slavery,  because  slaveholding  is  inconsistent  with  democratic 
principles ;  aims  at  it,  not  as  an  ultimate  end,  but  as  the  most 
important  present  object ;  as  a  great  and  necessary  step  in  the 
work  of  reform ;  as  an  illustrious  era  in  the  advancement  of 
society,  to  be  wrought  out  by  its  action  and  instrumentality.  The 
Liberty  party  of  1845  is,  in  truth,  the  Liberty  party  of  1776  re- 

1  Mr.  Chase,  in  this  address,  in  some  paragraphs  not  quoted  above,  charged  an 
equal  devotion  to  the  slave-interest  upon  both  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties. 
Mr.  Seward,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Chase,  dated  at  Auburn,  August  4,  1845,  protests 
against  this  as  unjust.  "  I  have  no  sympathy,"  he  said,  "  with  the  Whig  party  (though 
I  own  I  love  it  much)  in  any  feelings  of  passion  it  may  indulge  on  account  of  the 
exposure  of  its  lukewarmness  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  I  love  the  Whig  party, 
but  I  love  it  only  as  the  agency  through  which  to  promote  the  good  of  the  country 
and  of  mankind."  He  said  he  did  not  apply  the  name  Democratic  to  the  other 
party,  because  he  could  not  admit  such  a  misnomer,  regarding  it  as  the  slavery  party. 
"  There,  can  be,"  he  continued,  "  but  two  permanent  parties,  The  one  will  be  and 
must  be  the  Locofoco  party.  And  that  always  was,  and  is,  and  must  be,  the  slavery 
party.  Its  antagonist  of  course  must  be,  always,  as  it  always  was  and  is,  AN  ANTI- 
SLAVERY  PARTY,  more  or  less.  Whether  more  or  less  at  one  time  or  another,  depends 
of  course  on  the  advancement  of  the  public  mind  and  the  intentness  with  which  it 
can  be  fixed  on  the  question  of  slavery.  Nor  will  the  character  of  that  antagonist 
party  be  greatly  changed  by  any  change  of  organization  or  name.  Strike  down  the 
Whig  party  and  raise  the  Liberty  party  in  its  place — if  it  be  possible — and  the  Lib 
erty  party,  composed  of  the  same  elements,  will  be  only  the  Whig  party  as  it  would 
have  been  if  left  to  maintain  its  original  position.  I  see  nothing  but  loss  of  time  and 
strength  in  the  attempt  at  substitution,  if  successful :  although  I  can  see  that  the 
action  of  the  third  party  for  a  while  might  tend  to  stimulate  the  Whig  party  to  a 
greater  zeal.  The  Liberty  party  I  do.  not  think  will  succeed  in  displacing  the  Whig 
[party]  and  giving  a  new  name  to  the  same  mass  (and  I  repeat,  the  mass  of  the 
opposition  will  always  be  the  same  under  any  name).  You  think  otherwise.  So  let 
it  be.  We  must  differ  until  tune  shows  which  was  right.  Meantime,  I  am  for  eman 
cipation  and  against  slavery,  whether  my  party  go  with  me  and  live,  or  go  against  it 
and  fall.  Where  can  I  do  the  most  good  ?  Manifestly  with  my  own  party,  whose 
fortunes  I  share ;  and  the  more  perseveringly  when  those  fortunes  are  adverse  from 
errors  not  my  own.  To  abandon  a  party  and  friends  to  whom  I  owe  so  much,  whose 
confidence  I  do  in  some  degree  possess,  and  who,  as  far  as  I  am  known  to  them, 
have  steadily  advanced  to  every  position  I  have  ever  taken  in  regard  to  slavery,  would 
be  criminal,  and  not  more  criminal  than  unwise.  I  could  not  speak  to  them  with 
any  claim  on  their  consideration,  while  I  should  be  but  one  man  in  the  opposing  or 
rival  party  which  was  seeking  their  overthrow.  If  you  be  right,  the  liberty  cause 
will  find  me  just  where  I  am,  faithful  to  that  cause  whoever  leads  the  battle,  or  un 
der  whatever  banner.  If  /be  right,  it  is  just  the  same." 


ADDRESS  OF  WESTERN  LIBERTY  CONVENTION.  73 

vived.  It  is  more :  it  is  the  party  of  advancement  and  freedom, 
which  has — in  every  age  and  with  varying  success — fought  the 
battles  of  human  liberty  against  the  party  of  false  conserva 
tism  and  slavery.  .  .  . 

"  We  ask  all  true  friends  of  liberty,  of  impartial,  universal 
liberty,  to  be  firm  and  steadfast.  The  little  handful  of  voters 
who,  in  1840,  wearied  of  compromising  expediency,  and  despair 
ing  of  antislavery  action  by  pro-slavery  parties,  raised  anew  the 
standard  of  the  Declaration  "  (of  Independence),  "  and  manfully 
resolved  to  vote  right  then  and  vote  for  freedom,  has  already 
swelled  to  a  GREAT  PARTY,  strong  enough,  numerically,  to  decide 
the  issue  of  any  national  contest,  and  stronger  far  in  the  power 
of  its  pure  and  elevating  principles.  And  if  these  principles  be 
sound,  which  we  doubt  not,  and  if  the  slavery  question  be,  as 
we  verily  believe  it  is,  the  GREAT  QUESTION  of  our  day  and  na- . 
tion,  it  is  a  libel  upon  the  intelligence,  the  patriotism  and  the 
virtue  of  the  American  people,  to  say  that  there  is  no  hope  that 
a  majority  will  not  array  themselves  under  our  banner.  Let  it 
not  be  said  that  we  are  factious  or  impracticable.  We  adhere 
to  our  views  because  we  believe  them  to  be  sound,  practical,  and 
vitally  important.  "We  have  already  said  that  we  are  ready  to 
prove  our  devotion  to  our  principles  by  cooperation  with  either 
of  the  two  great  American  parties  which  will  openly  and  hon 
estly,  in  State  and  national  conventions,  avow  our  doctrines  and 
adopt  our  measures,  until  slavery  shall  be  overthrown.  We  do 
not,  indeed,  expect  any  such  adoption  and  avowal  by  either  of 
those  parties,  because  we  are  well  aware  that  they  fear  more,  at 
present,  from  the  loss  of  slaveholding  support  than  from  the 
loss  of  antislavery  cooperation.  But  we  can  be  satisfied  with 
nothing  less,  for  we  will  compromise  no  longer ;  and,  therefore, 
must  of  necessity  maintain  our  separate  organization  as  the  true 
Democratic  party  of  the  country,  and  trust  our  cause  to  the  suf 
frages  of  the  people  and  the  blessing  of  God ! 

"  Carry  then,  friends  of  freedom  and  free  labor,  your  prin 
ciples  to  the  ballot-box.  Let  no  difficulties  discourage,  no  dan 
gers  daunt,  no  delays  dishearten  you.  Your  solemn  vow  that 
slavery  must  perish  is  registered  in  heaven.  Renew  that  vow ! 
Think  of  the  martyrs  of  truth  and  freedom ;  think  of  the  mill 
ions  of  the  enslaved;  think  of  the  other  millions  of  the  op- 


74  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

pressed  and  degraded  free;  and  renew  that  vow!  Be  not 
tempted  from  the  path  of  political  duty.  To  compromise  for 
any  partial  or  temporary  advantage,  is  ruin  to  our  cause.  Un 
swerving  fidelity  to  our  principles;  unalterable  determination 
to  carry  those  principles  to  the  ballot-box  at  every  election  ;  in 
flexible  and  unanimous  support  of  those,  and  only  those,  who 
are  true  to  our  principles,  are  the  conditions  of  our  ultimate  tri 
umph.  Let  these  conditions  be  fulfilled  and  our  triumph  is  cer 
tain.  The  indications  of  its  coming  multiply  on  every  side.  A 
spirit  of  inquiry  and  of  action  is  awakened  everywhere.  The 
assemblage  of  this  convention,  whose  voice  we  utter,  is  itself  an 
auspicious  omen.  Gathered  from,  the  North  and  the  South  and 
from  the  East  and  the  "West,  we  here  unite  our  counsels  and 
consolidate  our  action.  We  are  resolved  to  go  forward,  know 
ing  that  our  cause  is  just,  trusting  in  God.  .  .  .  He  can,  and 
we  trust  He  will,  make  our  instrumentality  efficient  for  the 
redemption  of  our  land  from  slavery,  and  for  the  fulfillment  of 
our  fathers'  pledge  in  behalf  of  freedom,  before  Him  and  be 
fore  the  world." 

It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that,  although  the  annexation  of 
Texas  had  been  determined  upon  by  Congress  in  the  spring  of 
18-io,  no  other  notice  of  the  introduction  of  that  weighty  ele 
ment  into  the  antislavery  struggle  appeared  in  this  address,  than 
these  few  words :  "  It "  (slavery)  "  has  dictated  the  acquisition  of 
an  immense  foreign  territory,  not  for  the  laudable  purpose  of 
extending  the  blessings  of  freedom,  but  with  the  bad  design  of 
diffusing  the  curse  of  slavery,  and  thereby  consolidating  and 
perpetuating  its  own  ascendency." 

Meantime,  a  slave-case  occurred  at  Cincinnati  which  attracted 
a  general  attention.  On  the  morning  of  the  21st  of  January, 
1845,  one  Hoppess,  having  in  charge  a  colored  man  named  Sam 
uel  Watson,  arrived  at  Cincinnati  on  the  steamer  Ohio  Belle. 
Not  long  after  the  boat  was  made  fast  to  the  shore,  "Watson  was 
missing.  In  the  evening  he  was  found  by  Hoppess  upon  the 
landing,  not  attempting  and  probably  not  thinking  of  escape. 
He  was  seized  and  lodged  in  the  "  watch-house,"  and  on  the 
following  morning  was  taken  before  a  magistrate  in  or-der  to 
obtain  a  certificate  for  his  removal  as  a  fugitive  from  service, 
under  the  Federal  Act  of  1793. 


THE  WATSON  CASE.  75 

At  this  point  in  the  case  a  writ  of  habeas  cwpus  was  issued 
by  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State,  in  obedience 
to  which  Watson  was  brought  before  him,  and  Hoppess  was 
required  to  justify  the  detention.  To  this  purpose  Hoppess 
alleged  that  Watson  was  a  slave  in  Virginia,  whose  master 
had  taken  him  thence  to  Arkansas.  The  master  had  returned 
to  Virginia  and  had  died  there,  after  having  sold  Watson  to 
Floyd ;  that  as  the  agent  of  Floyd  he  (Hoppess)  had  gone  to 
Arkansas,  obtained  possession  of  Watson,  and  was  returning 
with  him  to  Virginia,  when,  the  boat  having  arrived  at  Cincin 
nati  very  early  in  the  morning,  Watson  escaped.  The  proof 
showed  that  at  the  time  of  the  alleged  escape  the  boat  was  made 
fast  to  the  Ohio  shore  and  inside  of  low-water  mark ;  that  at 
the  time  he  was  seized  on  the  landing  he  was  making  no  at 
tempt  to  escape,  and  that  those  who  first  noticed  the  boat  on  the 
morning  of  her  arrival  neither  observed  any  indications,  nor 
heard  any  suggestion,  of  an  escape  having  taken  place. 

Mr.  Chase,1  as  counsel  for  Watson,  insisted — 1.  That  there 
had  been  no  escape  ;  2.  That  the  escape,  if  there  was  one,  was 
from  one  place  in  Ohio  to  another  place  in  the  same  State,  and 
so  not  within  the  constitutional  provision  as  to  escaping  ser 
vants,  nor  the  provisions  of  the  act  of  1793 ;  3.  That  the  boat, 
at  the  time  of  the  escape,  was  within  the  State  of  Ohio,  being 
fastened  to  the  Ohio  shore  and  within  low-water  mark ;  to 
which  line,  by  consent  of  all,  the  territory  of  the  State  extends ; 
and  beyond  this  line,  it  was  insisted,  to  the  middle  of  the  river ; 
4.  That  the  holding  of  persons  as  slaves  in  Arkansas  was  repug 
nant  to  the  treaty  with  France,  which  provided  for  the  admis 
sion  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  territory  to  the  immunities  of 
citizens  of  the  United  States ;  and  also  to  the  fifth  amendment 
to  the  Constitution,  which  declares  that  no  person  shall  be  de 
prived  of  liberty  without  due  process  of  law,  and  applies,  at 
least,  to  all  national  Territories  and  States  created  out  of  such 
territories ;  and  that  Watson,  having  been  taken  by  his  alleged 
master  from  Virginia  to  Arkansas,  was  free  there,  and  could 

1  Associated  with  him  were  Messrs.  Birney  and  Johnson ;  and  the  judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court  before  whom  the  case  was  tried  was  Honorable  N.  C.  Read,  who  had 
been  the  opposing  counsel  to  Mr.  Chase  in  the  Matilda  case  and  in  the  case  also  of 
the  State  against  James  G.  Birney. 


76  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

not  be  reclaimed ;  5.  That  the  act  of  1793,  relating  to  fugitives 
from  service,  was  unconstitutional;  that  no  power  was  con 
ferred  by  the  Constitution  upon  Congress  to  legislate  on  the 
subject ;  and  if  there  was,  yet  the  provisions  of  this  act,  author 
izing  seizure  without  warrant,  trial  without  jury  and  without 
opportunity  to  the  defendant  to  cross-examine  witnesses  against 
him,  and  judgment  by  a  State  magistrate  irresponsible  in  the 
exercise  of  this  authority  to  the  State  or  the  United  States,  and 
compensated  only  according  to  his  own  bargain  with  the  plain 
tiff,  were  clearly  unconstitutional ;  and  6.  That  the  Ordinance  of 
1787  confined  the  right  of  reclaiming  escaping  servants,  as  to 
the  territory  of  the  United  States  northwest  of  the  Ohio  Eiver 
and  as  to  the  States  erected  out  of  it,  to  cases  of  escape  from 
the  original  States ;  and  that  Watson,  not  having  escaped  from 
an  original  State,  could  not,  therefore,  be  reclaimed  as  a  fugi 
tive  from  service. 

•  These  considerations  failed  to  influence  the  court  to  their 
whole  extent;  the  judge  holding  that  slavery  might  exist  in 
Arkansas ;  that  the  treaty  with  France  was  for  the  cession  of 
territory  and  allegiance,  and  did  not  change  the  relations  of  per 
sons  nor  the  rights  of  property.  He  also  held  that  a  slave 
escaping  to  Ohio  from  a  new  State  was  subject  to  recaption  pre 
cisely  as  though  the  escape  had  been  from  one  of  the  original 
States.  He  sustained  the  constitutionality  of  the  Federal  act 
authorizing  summary  process  against  escaping  servants;  and 
upon  the  leading  point  in  the  case,  respecting  the  jurisdiction  on 
the  Ohio  River,  the  court — although  laying  down  the  principle 
that  slavery  was  strictly  local — still  held  that  a  master  navigating 
the  Ohio  Eiver,  while  upon  the  water  was  within  the  jurisdic 
tion  of  Virginia  or  Kentucky  for  the  purpose  of  retaining  the 
right  to  his  slave ;  and  that,  although  the  boat  which  contained 
them  should  be  fastened  to  the  shore  of  a  free  State,  yet  a  slave 
going  at  large  would  be  liable  to  recaption  as  a  fugitive  from 
one  State  into  another — this  being  an  incident  to  the  common 
right  of  navigation,  secured  at  an  early  day  to  the  people  of  the 
States  bordering  upon  the  Ohio  Eiver.  But  although  the  effect 
of  this  opinion  was  to  remand  Watson  into  slavery,  the  court 
emphatically  recognized  the  strictly  local  character  of  the  institu 
tion  ;  upon  this  point  coming  fully  up  to  the  doctrine  set  up  by 


THE  WATSON  CASE.  77 

Mr.  Chase  in  the  Matilda  case  in  1837,  and  in  the  case  also  of 
the  State  of  Ohio  against  Birney.  "  Slavery,"  said  the  court, 
"  is  wrong  inflicted  by  force  and  supported  alone  by  the  munici 
pal  power  of  the  State  or  Territory  in  which  it  exists.  It  is 
opposed  to  the  principles  of  natural  justice  and  right  and  is  the 
mere  creature  of  positive  law.  If  a  master  bring  his  slave  into 
the  State  of  Ohio  he  loses  all  power  over  him.  If  the  master 
take  his  slave  beyond  the  influence  of  the  laws  which  create  the 
relation,  it  fails ;  there  is  nothing  to  support  it,  and  they  stand 
as  man  and  man.  The  slave  is  free  by  the  laws  of  the  State  to 
which  he  has  been  brought  by  the  master,  and  there  is  no  law 
authorizing  the  master  to  force  him  back  to  the  State  which 
recognizes  the  relation  of  master  and  slave.  At  one  time  I  was 
of  opinion  that  he  had  the  right  of  passage  through  a  free  State 
with  his  slave.  This  would  probably  harmonize  with  the  spirit 
of  the  compromise  upon  this  subject.  But  upon  more  careful 
examination,  I  am  satisfied  the  master  must  lose  his  slave  if  he 
brings  him  into  a  free  State,  unless  the  slave  voluntarily  returns 
to  a  state  of  slavery ;  because  the  master  loses  all  power  over 
the  slave  by  the  law  of  the  State  to  which  he  has  brought 
him,  and  there  is  no  other  law  authorizing  the  master  to 
remove  him.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  only 
recognizes  the  right  of  recapture  of  a  fugitive  held  to  service 
in  one  State  escaping  into  another.  The  person  owing  service 
must  escape  from  the  State  where  such  service  is  owed  into 
another  State.  The  act  of  Congress  carrying  into  effect  the 
constitutional  provision,  authorizes  a  recaption  only  where  there 
has  been  an  escape  from  the  State  where  the  service  was  owed 
into  another  State.  If  there  has  been  no  such  escape,  the  mas 
ter  has  no  right  of  recaption,  and  the  slave  may  go  where  he 
pleases ;  the  master  has  lost  all  control  over  him." 

"  This  opinion  of  Judge  Read,"  remarks  the  writer  of  the 
pamphlet  from  which  this  account  of  Watson's  case  is  extracted, 
"  shows  that  his  transition  from  his  former  to  his  present  opinion, 
might  be  characterized  as  progress.  The  popular  sympathy  for 
a  slave  claiming  his  liberty,  and  the  evident  impression  made 
upon  public  sentiment  by  the  considerations  urged  in  his  behalf, 
were  indications  no  less  significant  of  '  progress.' "  1 

1  Pending  this  case  of  Watson  Mr.  Polk,  the  recently-elected  President,  passed 


78  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

After  the  result  of  the  case  was  known,  it  was  determined  at 
a  meeting  of  the  colored  people  of  Cincinnati,  that  an  appropri 
ate  mark  of  grateful  respect  should  be  tendered  to  each  of  the 
counsel  for  Watson,  who  had  all  declined  compensation  for  their 
professional  services.  The  testimonial  to  Mr.  Chase  was  a  silver 
pitcher,  copied  from  a  fine  antique  model,  with  little  ornament 
beyond  the  slight  chasing  of  the  borders  and  handle.  It  bore 
this  inscription : 

A 

TESTIMONIAL  OF  GEATITUDE 
TO 

SALMON  P.  CHASE 

FBOM 

THE  COLOEED  PEOPLE   OF  CINCINNATI, 

FOB  HIS 

VABIOUS   PUBLIC   SEEVICE8   IN   BEHALF   OF   THE   OPPEESSED 
AND  PABTICmLABLY  FOE  HIS 

ELOQUENT  ADVOCACY   OF  THE  EIGHTS   OF  MAN 

IN  THE   CASE   OF   SAMUEL  WATSON, 
WHO   WAS   CLAIMED   AS   A   FUGITIVE   SLAVE, 

FEBRUARY  12,  1845. 

In  accepting  this  testimonial  Mr.  Chase  said,  in  reply  to  the 
presentation  address,  that  he  was  content  to  be  counted  one  of 
the  rank  and  file  in  the  contest  for  universal  freedom.  "  I  can 
only  take  credit,"  he  continued,  "  if  I  take  credit  at  all,  for  not 
being  unwilling  to  learn  and  to  do.  Nor  in  what  I  have  done 
can  I  claim  to  have  acted  from  any  peculiar  consideration  of  the 
colored  people  as  a  separate  and  distinct  class  in  the  commu 
nity  ;  but  from  the  simple  consideration  that  all  the  individuals 
of  that  class  are  members  of  the  community,  and  in  virtue  of 
their  manhood  are  entitled  to  every  original  right  enjoyed  by 
any  other  member.  I  am  only  one  of  a  great  number,  who 
adopt  the  opinion  that  in  a  country  of  democratic  institutions, 
there  is  no  reliable  security  for  the  rights  of  any  unless  the 
rights  of  all  are,  also,  secure.  In  a  monarchy  or  an  aristocracy, 
the  rights,  or  rather  privileges,  of  a  class  may  be  created  by 

through  Cincinnati,  and  was  welcomed  by  Judge  Read,  who  was  a  prominent  mem 
ber  of  the  Democratic  party. 


EARLY  VIEWS  ON  UNIVERSAL  SUFFRAGE.  79 

law  and  secured  by  law.  But  in  a  democracy,  which  recognizes 
no  classes  and  no  privileges,  every  man  must  be  protected  in  his 
just  rights,  or  no  man  can  be,  by  law.  The  moment  the  law 
excludes  a  portion  of  the  community  from  its  equal  regard,  it 
divides  the  community  into  higher  and  lower  classes,  and  intro 
duces  all  the  evils  of  the  aristocratic  principle.  Henceforth  in 
that  community,  rights,  in  the  proper  sense  of  that  word,  cease 
to  exist.  Instead  of  rights,  there  are  privileges  for  the  higher 
classes,  and  restrictions  for  the  inferior.  We  feel,  therefore, 
that  all  legal  distinctions  between  individuals  of  the  same  com 
munity,  founded  on  any  circumstances  of  color,  origin  and  the 
like,  are  hostile  to  the  genius  of  our  institutions  and  incompatible 
with  the  true  theory  of  American  liberty.  God  forbid  that  we 
shall  fail  to  sympathize  truly  and  deeply  with  the  poor,  the 
destitute,  the  oppressed,  the  enslaved  colored  people  of  our 
land ;  or  to  exert  ourselves  strenuously  in  their  behalf ;  but  let 
us  not  take  to  ourselves  too  much  credit  for  sympathy  or  effort, 
since  our  own  rights  as  well  as  theirs  are  involved  in  the  struggle 
in  which  we  are  engaged,  and  every  day's  experience  adds  fresh 
strength  to  the  conviction  that  slavery  and  oppression  must  cease, 
or  American  liberty  must  perish."  Mr.  Chase  further  said,  in 
the  course  of  his  remarks,  that  he  "  embraced  with  pleasure  the 
opportunity  of  declaring  his  disapprobation  of  that  clause  of  the 
constitution  of  the  State  which  denied  to  a  portion  of  the  colored 
people  the  right  of  suffrage.  .  .  .  True  democracy"  he  alleged, 
"  makes  no  inquiry  about  the  color  of  the  skin,  or  the  place  of 
nativity,  or  any  other  similar  circumstance  of  condition.  Wher 
ever  it  sees  a  man,  it  recognizes  a  being  endowed  by  his  Creator 
with  original  inalienable  rights.  In  communities  of  men,  it 
recognizes  no  distinctions  founded  on  mere  arbitrary  will.  1 
regard^  therefore,  the  exclusion  of  the  colored  people  as  a  body 
from  the  elective  franchise  as  incompatible  with  true  democratic 
principles" 

Ten  years  afterward,  when  Mr.  Chase  was  a  candidate  for 
Governor  of  Ohio,  his  declaration  for  universal  suffrage  made 
on  the  occasion  of  this  presentation  was  used  as  a  potent  elec 
tioneering  argument  against  him ;  but  he  neither  denied  nor 
qualified  his  expressions  on  the  subject.  More  than  this — he 
reiterated  his  adherence  to  his  avowed  principles,  and  said  that 


80  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

he  "  more  valued  the  gratitude  of  an  oppressed  people  than  he 
did  any  office,  even  that  of  Governor  of  Ohio." 

It  ought  to  be  observed  here,  that  in  conformity  with  his 
views  touching  the  radical  injustice  of  the  State  laws  discrimi 
nating  against  the  colored  people,  Mr.  Chase,  in  his  local  politi 
cal  efforts,  sought,  as  a  primary  object,  the  repeal  of  those  laws. 


CHAPTEE   XI. 

ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS — BUFFALO  NATIONAL  LIBERTY  CONVENTION 
OF  1847 — STATE  CONVENTION  AT  COLUMBUS,  1848 — DEMO 
CRATIC  AND  WHIG-  NATIONAL  CONVENTIONS  OF  THAT  YEAR 

CONVENTION    OF   BARNBURNER    DEMOCRATS     OF     NEW     YORK 

FREE-SOIL   NATIONAL    CONVENTION   AT   BUFFALO   IN   AUGUST 

NOMINATION   OF  MARTIN  VAN   BUREN  AND    CHARLES     FRANCIS 
ADAMS PLATFORM — GENERAL   RESULTS. 

THE  annexation  of  Texas  and  the  war  with  Mexico,  had 
given  a  powerful  impulse  to  the  aritislavery  sentiment  of 
the  North.  The  Whigs,  out  of  office  and  in  natural  antagonism 
to  every  measure  of  a  Democratic  Administration,  and  perfectly 
informed,  at  the  same  time,  that  there  could  be  no  permanent 
alliance  between  themselves  and  the  slave-interest — had  become 
widely  and  deeply  affected  with  antislavery  sentiments,  and 
great  inroads  had  been  made  also  among  Northern  Democrats. 
The  end  of  the  war,  and  the  acquisition  of  vast  territories  under 
the  treaty  with  Mexico — called  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo — made 
in  February,  1848,  introduced  into  national  politics  new  ele 
ments.  Whether  the  recently-acquired  territories  should  be 
given  up  to  slavery,  or  made  free,  became  a  topic  of  very 
earnest  discussion,  and  the  public  temper  in  the  North  seemed 
to  warrant  the  belief  that  one  or  the  other  of  the  great  parties 
would  be  compelled  to  take  ground  in  favor  of  freedom. 

The  National  Convention  of  the  Liberty  men  was  held  at 
Buffalo  in  the  fall  of  1847,  and  in  this  convention  Mr.  Chase  had 
participated  as  a  delegate;  but  under  the  full  conviction  that 
6 


g2  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

the  ensuing  six  or  eight  months  would  materially  change  the 
aspect  of  political  affairs,  he  had  opposed  the  nomination  of  can 
didates.  The  convention  did  not  share  his  views,  and  nomi 
nated  John  P.  Hale  for  the  first  office.  It  was  proposed  to  put 
Mr.  Chase's  name  upon  the  ticket  for  the  second,  but  he  per 
emptorily  declined,  and  Leicester  King  was  selected. 

Mr.  Chase,  however,  did  not  feel  irrevocably  bound  by  this 
action ;  and  looked  forward  with  hope  that  one  of  the  great  par 
ties  would  place  itself  squarely  upon  a  platform  of  slavery  ex 
clusion  ;  or,  at  least,  nominate  a  statesman  so  committed  to  that 
policy  as  to  warrant  those  in  voting  for  him  who  believed  exclu 
sion  to  be  of  paramount  importance. 

In  order  to  be  prepared  for  that  event,  and  at  the  same  time 
prepared  also  for  independent  action — either  in  supporting  the 
nominees  of  the  Liberty  party,  or  of  a  new  organization,  if  that 
should  be  deemed  wiser  and  better — he  obtained  the  coopera 
tion  of  some  friends  in  procuring  signatures  to  a  call  for  a  Peo 
ple's  Convention  to  be  held  at  Columbus  on  the  21st  of  June, 
1848,  being  the  anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill.  This 
call  was  signed  by  more  than  three  thousand  citizens  of  the 
State,  including  men  of  all  parties — Whigs,  Liberty  men  and 
Democrats,  with  a  preponderance  of  the  latter.  "  A  great  crisis 
is  at  hand,"  was  the  language  of  this  paper.  "  The  war  with 
Mexico  must  result — if,  before  you  read  this  call,  it  shall  not 
already  have  resulted — in  the  acquisition  of  extensive  territories 
by  the  United  States.  These  territories  are  now  free  territories  ; 
but  it  is  demanded  by  the  slave-power  that  they  shall  be,  by 
the  national  Government,  made  slave  territories  ;  that  the  trade 
in  living  men  and  women  shall  be  permitted  in  them  by  the 
national  authority;  that  free  labor  and  free  laborers  shall  be 
virtually  excluded  from  them  by  being  subjected  to  degrading 
competition  with  slave-labor  and  slave-laborers ;  and  finally  that 
they  may  be  erected  into  slave  States,  with  slave  representations 
in  Congress  and  the  electoral  colleges.  It  is  strange,  but  un 
happily  true,  that  prominent  men  in  each  of  the  two  great  par 
ties  of  the  country  have  been  found  ready  to  submit  to  this 
demand.  Mighty  efforts  are  now  made  to  force  upon  both 
these  parties  nominations,  for  President  and  Yice-President,  of 
candidates  who  will  favor,  either  by  active  cooperation  or  silent 


POLITICAL  ACTION  IN   1848.  83 

connivance,  the  designs  of  the  slave-power.  These  efforts  will 
be  successful,  unless  the  friends  of  freedom  arouse  themselves 
and  act  in  concert.  They  may  be  successful,  notwithstanding 
such  action^  If  so,  nothing  will  remain  for  true  patriots  but 
acquiescence  in  the  demand,  or  a  noble  struggle  for  victory.  It 
becomes  us  to  be  prepared  for  every  event.  Should  the  conven 
tions  of  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties  nominate  candidates 
worthy  of  the  confidence  of  non-slaveholding  freemen,  we  shall 
greatly  rejoice  ;  if  not,  we  must  act  as  befits  men  determined  to 
resist  by  all  constitutional  means,  the  extension  of  slavery  into 
the  territories  hereafter  acquired.  We  ask  no  man  to  leave  his 
party  or  surrender  his  party  views.  This  call  is  signed  indis 
criminately  by  Democrats,  Whigs  and  Liberty  men.  But  we  do 
ask  every  man  who  loves  his  country,  to  be  ready,  if  need  be, 
to  suspend  for  a  time  ordinary  party  contentions  and  unite  in 
one  manful,  earnest  and  victorious  effort  for  the  holy  cause  of 
freedom  and  free  labor.  .  .  .  We  therefore  invite  the  electors 
of  Ohio,  friends  of  freedom,  free  territory  and  free  labor,  with 
out  distinction  of  party  to  meet  in  mass  convention  for  the  pur 
pose  of  considering  the  political  condition  of  our  country,  and 
taking  such  action  as  the  exigency  may  require  :  And  may  God 
defend  the  right !  " 

Pending  the  circulation  of  this  call,  the  national  conventions 
of  the  two  old  parties  were  held  ;  that  of  the  Democrats  at  Bal 
timore  on  the  22d  of  May,  and  the  Whig  Convention  at  Phila 
delphia  on  the  7th  of  June.  Both  were  more  or  less  controlled 
by  the  slave-interest.  In  the  Democratic  Convention  no  attempt 
was  made  to  secure  any  declaration  against  slavery  or  its  exten 
sion,  but  the  opposition  to  the  slave-domination  found  expres 
sion  in  an  effort  to  secure  admission  into  the  convention  of  the 
Radical  or  Barnburner  delegation  from  ]S"ew  York,  the  members 
of  which  were  avowedly  in  favor  of  the  exclusion  of  slavery  from 
the  Territories.  The  convention  proposed  to  admit  both  the 
Barnburner  and  "  Hunker  "  or  Conservative  delegations,  giving 
to  each  one-half  the  vote  to  which  the  State  was  entitled,  but  the 
Barnburners  declined  to  accede  to  this  proposition,  and  returned 
to  their  constituents  to  give  an  account  of  their  mission.  The 
convention  nominated  General  Cass  for  President  and  General 
William  O.  Butler  for  Yice-President. 


84  LITE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

The  "Whig  Convention  nominated  General  Taylor  for  the  first 
and  Millard  Fillmore  for  the  second  place  on  their  ticket.  No 
resolves  affirming  any  distinctive  principles  were  adopted,  and 
repeated  efforts  to  secure  some  antislavery  expression  by  inter 
posing  a  resolution  affirming  the  Wilinot  Proviso,  were  met  by 
successful  motions  to  lay  the  resolution  on  the  table.  The  nom 
ination  of  a  Southern  slaveholder  for  the  presidency,  whose 
military  glory  was  the  fruit  of  the  Mexican  War,  was  satisfactory 
to  the  South — but  at  the  beginning  of  the  canvass  was  extreme 
ly  distasteful  to  many  Northern  Whigs,  who,  however,  afterward 
went  to  his  support. 

This  was  the  condition  of  political  affairs,  when  the  People's 
State  Convention,  called  to  meet  on  the  21st  of  June  at  Colum 
bus,  met  pursuant  to  the  call.  The  New  York  Democrats — the 
Barnburners — met  in  State  Convention  on  the  same  day,  to  de 
termine  what  course,  in  the  existing  circumstances,  should  be  pur 
sued  by  the  New  York  Democracy.  The  New  York  Convention 
passed  a  resolution  authorizing  the  delegates  to  the  Baltimore 
Convention  to  attend  and  take  part  in  any  convention  of  the 
free  States  which  might  be  called  for  the  purpose  of  collecting 
and  concentrating  the  popular  will  in  relation  to  the  presidency, 
and  nominated  Mr.  Yan  Buren  as  their  candidate. 

The  Ohio  Convention  was  a  large  and  harmonious  body. 
Mr.  Chase,  anxious  to  avoid  all  action  which  might  be  inter 
preted  as  evincing  a  wish  on  the  part  of  Liberty  men  to  take  the 
lead  in  the  new  political  organization  likely  to  be  formed,  drew 
the  address  and  resolutions  of  the  convention,  but  placed  them 
in  other  hands  and  committed  their  advocacy  to  other  tongues. 
He  wished  to  take  no  risks  of  possible  prejudice  on  the  part  of 
members  of  the  old  parties  participating  in  the  convention,  and 
was  therefore  willing  that  the  credit  of  whatever  might  be  done 
should  accrue  to  others. 

The  convention  took  the  course  he  anticipated  and  wished. 
It  declared  the  nominations  of  the  old  parties  unfit  to  be  sup 
ported  ;  passed  resolutions  in  favor  of  freedom  for  the  Territo 
ries,  and  recommended  a  national  convention  at  Buffalo  on  the 
9th  of  August  next  following,  to  consist  of  six  delegates  at  large 
from  any  State  choosing  to  be  represented,  and  three  from  each 
congressional  district. 


THE  BUFFALO   CONVENTION  OF   1848.  85 

A  national  convention  of  "  Free-Soilers  " — as  they  were  called 
who  favored  slavery  exclusion — met  at  Buffalo,  accordingly,  on 
the  9th  of  August.  The  New  York  Radical  delegation,  appointed 
originally  to  attend  the  Democratic  National  Convention  at  Bal 
timore,  took  their  seats  as  members.  The  attendance  upon  this 
gathering  at  Buffalo  was  surprisingly  great.  Besides  the  regular 
convention,  which  consisted  of  four  hundred  and  sixty-five  dele 
gates  representing  eighteen  States,  there  was  a  mass  convention 
which  numbered  many  thousand  persons.  Mr.  Chase  was  chosen 
to  preside  over  the  former,  and  Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams  over 
the  latter.  There  was  entire  harmony  among  the  delegates,  and 
a  great  enthusiasm  among  the  people.  The  nomination  of  Mr. 
Yan  Buren  as  their  candidate  for  the  presidency,  unanimously 
made  by  the  former,  was  ratified  by  the  latter,  assembled  in  mass 
convention,  with  enthusiastic  demonstrations  of  approval.  The 
nomination  of  Mr.  Adams  for  the  second  place  was  equally  sat 
isfactory,  although  many  of  the  delegates  from  the  West  pre 
ferred  a  "Western  man,  and  no  doubt  would  have  united  upon 
Mr.  Chase  had  he  permitted  the  use  of  his  name,  which  he  de 
clined  to  do.  • 

The  resolutions  which  formed  the  declaration  of  principles 
proposed  by  the  convention  to  the  people,  were  almost  wholly 
drawn  by  Mr.  Chase.  They  were  carefully  considered  in  com 
mittee  and  earnestly  discussed  before  they  received  its  sanction. 
"When  reported  to  the  convention  by  the  chairman  of  the  com 
mittee  on  resolutions,  Mr.  Butler,  of  New  York,  they  were 
adopted  by  a  unanimous  vote. 

In  these  resolutions  there  was  nothing  Delphic;  they  ex 
pressed  the  precise  views  of  their  author  and  of  the  convention ; 
they  declared :  "  That  the  proviso  of  Jefferson,  to  prohibit  the 
existence  of  slavery  after  the  year  1800  in  all  the  Territories  of 
the  United  States,  Northern  and  Southern ;  the  votes  of  six  States 
and  sixteen  delegates  in  the  Congress  of  17S4  for  that  proviso, 
to  three  States  and  seven  delegates  against  it ;  the  actual  exclu 
sion  of  slavery  from  the  Northwestern  Territory  by  the  Ordi 
nance  of  1787,  unanimously  adopted  by  the  States  in  Congress ; 
and  the  entire  history  of  that  period,  clearly  show  that  it  was 
the  settled  policy  of  the  nation,  not  to  extend,  nationalize  or  en 
courage,  but  to  limit,  localize  and  ^courage  slavery ;  and  to 


36  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

this  policy,  which  should  never  have  been  departed  from,  the 
Government  ought  to  return;  that  our  fathers  ordained  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  in  qrder,  among  other  great 
national  objects,  to  establish  justice,  promote  the  general  welfare, 
and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty ;  but  expressly  denied  to  the 
Federal  Government,  which  they  created,  all  constitutional  power 
to  deprive  any  person  of  life,  liberty  or  property,  without  due 
legal  process ;  that  in  the  judgment  of  this  convention,  Congress 
has  no  more  power  to  make  a  slave  than  to  make  a  king ;  no 
more  power  to  institute  or  establish  slavery  than  to  institute  or 
establish  a  monarchy ;  no  such  power  can  be  found  among  those 
specifically  conferred  by  the  Constitution  or  derived  by  just  im 
plication  from  them ;  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  to  relieve  itself  from  all  responsibility  for  the  existence  or 
continuance  of  slavery  wherever  that  Government  possesses  con 
stitutional  authority  to  legislate  on  that  subject,  and  is  thus 
responsible  for  its  existence ;  that  the  true  and,  in  the  judg 
ment  of  this  convention,  the  only  safe  means  of  preventing  the 
extension  of  slavery  into  territory  now  free,  is  to  prohibit  its 
existence  in  all  such  territory  by  act  of  Congress ;  that  we  accept 
the  issue  which  the  slave-power  has  forced  upon  us,  and  to  their 
demand  for  more  slave  States  and  more  slave  territory,  our  calm 
but  final  answer  is — c  No  more  slave  States  and  no  more  slave 
territory.5  Let  the  soil  of  our  extensive  domains  be  ever  kept 
free  for  the  hardy  pioneers  of  our  own  land,  and  the  oppressed 
and  banished  of  other  lands,  seeking  homes  of  comfort  and  fields 
of  enterprise  in  the  New  World ;  that  we  demand  freedom  and 
established  institutions  for  our  brethren  in  Oregon,  now  exposed 
to  hardships,  peril  and  massacre,  by  the  reckless  hostility  of  the 
slave-power  to  the  establishment  of  free  government  for  free 
Territories,  and  not  only  for  them,  but  for  our  new  brethren  in 
California  and  New  Mexico."  1 

So  ended  the  work  of  this  great  convention.     Its  large  num 
bers,  and  the  high  respectability  and  influence  of  its  member- 

1  The  convention  resolved,  also,  for  cheap  postage ;  retrenched  Federal  expendi 
tures  ;  the  abolition  of  all  unnecessary  offices  and  salaries ;  the  election  of  all  civil 
officers  by  the  people,  so  far  as  practicable ;  river  and  harbor  improvements  ;  the 
grant  of  public  lands  to  actual  settlers ;  a  tariff  of  duties  for  revenue  adequate  to 
defray  the  necessary  expenses  of  the  Federal  Government,  and  to  pay  annual  install 
ments  of  the  public  debt  and  the  interest  thereon. 


PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION  OF   1848.  87 

ship  and  following,  had  a  profound  effect  upon  the  leaders  of 
the  old  parties,  and  upon  the  people ;  and  to  its  assembling  and 
action  has  been  attributed,  and  no  doubt  justly,  the  passage  of 
the  bill  organizing  the  Territory  of  Oregon  with  the  prohibition 
of  slavery,  which  was  then  pending  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States. 

The  election  which  followed,  as  all  the  world  knows,  resulted 
in  the  choice  of  General  Taylor :  2,872,000  votes  were  cast,  by 
the  people,  and  of  these  Mr.  Yan  Buren  had  291,342,  being 
one-ninth — nearly  one-eighth — of  the  whole  number. 

The  election  showed  the  power  of  principles  and  the  power 
of  party.  Except  in  Ohio  and  Massachusetts,  the  Whigs  almost 
everywhere  supported  the  nominations  of  the  Philadelphia  Con 
vention,  and  except  in  New  York  the  Democrats  almost  every 
where  supported  General  Cass.  In  New  York  the  recognized 
organization  of  the  Democratic  party  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
friends  of  Mr.  Yan  Buren,  and  he  received  in  that  State  120,000 
votes.  In  Massachusetts,  and  in  the  northern  counties  of  Ohio, 
where  the  "Whigs  were  in  the  ascendant,  the  profound  antislavery 
convictions  of  great  numbers  of  the  people  made  it  impossible 
for  them  to  support  national  candidates  who  had  made  no  dec 
larations  against  the  extension  of  slavery,  and  Mr.  Yan  Buren 
had  in  Massachusetts  38,000  and  in  Ohio  35,500  votes.  The 
consequence  of  all  was,  that  General  Taylor  carried  New 
York,  and  General  Cass  carried  Ohio  and  all  the  States  north 
west  of  the  Ohio  River,  by  reason  of  the  defection  of  Whig 
votes.  A  further  and  more  important  consequence  of  the  com 
plications  of  the  canvass,  was  the  damage  and  demoralization  it 
wrought  in  both  the  old  parties.  Though  the  Whigs  emerged 
from  it  enjoying  a  nominal  victory,  the  Whig  party  was  too  ex 
tensively  disorganized  to  make  use  of  its  fruits,  either  for  the 
consolidation  of  its  own  power  or  for  the  good  of  the  country. 

The  Democratic  party  in  the  North  was  similarly  affected, 
but  in  far  less  degree.  Immediately  after  the  election,  how 
ever — claiming  that  under  the  doctrines  maintained  by  General 
Cass,  slavery,  though  not  prohibited  by  law,  could  find  no  in 
gress  into  the  Territories — the  great  body  of  the  Democrats 
passed  by  an  easy  transition  into  a  profession  of  the  doctrines 
entertained  by  the  "  Independent  Democracy  "  which  had  sup- 


88  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

ported  !Mr.  Van  Buren.  Everywhere  indications  became  visible 
on  the  part  of  the  Old-line  Democrats  of  a  disposition  to  unite 
with  the  Free-Soil  Democrats  upon  the  ground  of  slavery  pro 
hibition.  In  a  number  of  States,  resolutions  were  adopted  by 
the  Old-line  and  the  Independent  Democrats  uniting  the  two 
organizations ;  while  in  others  where  actual  union  did  not  take 
place,  there  was  more  or  less  concert  of  action  between  them. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

DEMOCRATIC  ANTISLAVERY  IN  OHIO  IN  1848,  1849,  AND  1850 — COM 
POSITION  OF  THE  OHIO  LEGISLATURE  IN  1848-'49 WHIG  AP 
PORTIONMENT  OF  1847-'48  IN  HAMILTON  COUNTY FREE-SOIL 

CAUCUS TOWNSHEND   AND    MORSE ACTION    OF   THE    CAUCUS 

THE    MORSE   AND    TOWNSHEND    COALITION   WITH    THE    OLD-LINE 

DEMOCRATS ELECTION   OF   MR.    CHASE   TO   THE   UNITED    STATES 

SENATE WHIG     CHARGES     OF     ITS     IMMORALITY WHAT     HAP- 

'      PENED     TO      THE      PRINCIPAL     ACTORS     LN      THE     COALITION 

EXTRACTS     FROM    LETTERS    OF    MR.     CHASE YERDICT     OF   THE 


IN  Ohio  and  New  York,  more  than  in  the  other  free  States, 
the  Democracy  felt  the  impulse  of  the  antislavery  move 
ment. 

In  the  former,  the  State  Convention  which  assembled  at 
Columbus  on  the  8th  of  January,  1848,  had  declared :  "  That 
the  people  of  Ohio,  now,  as  they  have  always  done,  look  upon 
the  institution  of  slavery  in  any  part  of  the  Union  as  an  evil, 
and  unfavorable  to  the  full  development  of  the  spirit  and  prac 
tical  "benefits  of  free  institutions ;  and  that,  entertaining  these 
sentiments,  they  will  at  the  same  time  FEEL  rr  TO  BE  THEIR  DUTY 

TO  USE  ALL  THE  POWER  CLEARLY  GIVEN  BY  THE  NATIONAL  COM 
PACT,  TO  PREVENT  ITS  INCREASE,  TO  MITIGATE  AND  FINALLY  TO 
ERADICATE  THE  EVDL." 

The  doctrine  contained  in  this  statement  of  the  creed  of  the 
Ohio  Democracy  was  that  avowed  and  supported  by  Mr.  Chase, 


90  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

but  the  action  of  the  National  Democratic  Convention  destroyed 
whatever  hopes  he  might  have  entertained  that  the  Democracy  of 
the  nation  would  put  themselves  in  accord  with  the  Democracy 
of  Ohio.  He  went  into  the  movement  which  culminated  in 
the  Buffalo  Convention  therefore,  with  all  his  energies ;  and  in 
the  canvass  which  followed  took  an  active  part,  but  confined  his 
efforts  almost  wholly  to  Ohio. 

That  canvass  was  marked  by  extraordinary  features. 

There  were  in  the  State  three  strong  parties.  The  great 
mass  of  the  voters  belonged,  of  course,  either  to  the  Whig  or  to 
the  Democratic  party,  but  a  very  considerable  number  were  Inde 
pendent  Democrats,  or  Free-Soilers,  who  supported  the  Buffalo 
nominations.  The  election  for  members  of  the  Legislature 
showed  the  effect  of  this  political  condition.  Much  the  greater 
number  were  Democrats  and  Whigs ;  but  some,  not  uninfluential 
members,  had  been  elected  as  "Independent  Democrats"  or 
Free-Soilers,  either  by  a  union  between  Old-line  Democrats  and 
Free-Soilers,  or  between  "Whigs  and  Free-Soilers ;  and  two  had 
been  elected  as  Independent  Democrats  over  the  nominees  of 
both  the  old  parties.  The  Legislature,  thus  chosen,  had  in  its 
hands  nearly  the  whole  appointing  power  of  the  State.  A 
United  States  Senator  was  to  be  elected ;  two  Judges  of  the 
Supreme  Court  were  to  be  appointed,  and  a  great  number  of 
less  important  offices  were  to  be  filled. 

This  was  the  political  situation  at  the  time  of  the  meeting  of 
the  Legislature  in  December,  1848.  An  important  question 
engaged  the  attention  of  that  body  at  the  very  beginning  of  the 
session,  which  arose  out  of  the  election  of  members  in  Hamilton 
County. 

For  a  long  period  of  years  Hamilton  County  had  constituted 
but  a  single  election  district,  and  in  1847  was  entitled  to  two 
senators  and  five  representatives.  The  county  being  Demo 
cratic,  all  these  members  were  of  course  Democrats. 

At  the  session  of  1847-'48,  however,  the  Whigs  succeeded 
in  making  a  division  of  the  county,  by  means  of  which  one 
Whig  senator  and  two  Whig  representatives  would  be  elected 
in  a  fraction  of  the  county,  and  one  senator  and  three  repre 
sentatives  would  be  elected  by  the  Democrats  in  a  large  part  of 
the  county. 


THE  HAMILTON  COUNTY  DIVISION.  91 

This  division  was  denounced  by  the  Democrats  as  unconsti 
tutional  ;  they  charged  that  it  was  a  fraud  upon  the  people  of 
the  whole  State.  The  Whigs  declared  that  it  was  not  only  con 
stitutional,  but  was  a  measure  of  public  justice.  The  question 
of  the  constitutionality  of  the  act  was  undoubtedly  one  upon 
which  scrupulous  men  might  honestly  differ ;  but  that  it  was 
singularly  unequal  and  unjust  in  its  operation  could  not  be  de 
nied,  and  some  not  uniiifluential  members  of  the  Whig  party 
opposed  it  for  that  reason.  Mr.  Chase,  immediately  upon  the 
passage  of  the  act — and  long  before  his  election  to  the  United 
States  Senate  was  possible  or  even  thought  of — stated  his  em 
phatic  conviction  that  it  was  unconstitutional. 

The  Democrats  acted  upon  their  professions,  and  ignored  the 
division.  No  senator  was  to  be  elected  in  1848,  but  they  voted 
for  two  representatives  upon  the  Democratic  ticket  common 
throughout  Hamilton  County.  The  Whigs  voted  for  two  candi 
dates  in  the  district  created  by  the  Whig  apportionment ;  if  the 
act  making  the  division  were  to  prevail,  the  Whig  candidates 
would  of  course  be  entitled  to  membership,  seeing  that  they  had 
a  majority  of  votes  in  the  new  district,  but  the  county  clerk — a 
Democrat — gave  certificates  of  election  to  the  Democratic  candi 
dates.  Upon  the  meeting  of  the  Legislature,  early  in  December, 
1848,  there  appeared  as  claimants  for  seats  from  Hamilton 
County — Pugh  and  Pierce,  Democrats,  and  Spencer  and  Run- 
yon,  Whigs. 

Now,  the  Legislature  itself  was  peculiarly  constituted,  in  re 
spect  of  political  parties ;  and  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
the  State,  the  Free-Soil  members  met  in  caucus  for  consultation 
touching  the  course  proper  to  be  pursued  by  them. 

There  were  present  at  that  consultation  thirteen  Free-Soilers ; 
eleven  of  whom  had  been  Whigs,  and  were  elected  by  the  aid  of 
Whig  votes,  upon  united  Whig  and  Free-Soil  tickets.  Two 
members  of  the  caucus — Colonel  John  F.  Morse,  of  Lake  County, 
and  Dr.  Norton  S.  Townshend,  of  Lorain — had  been  elected  as 
"  Independents,"  or  in  opposition  to  the  candidates  of  both  the 
old  parties.  Dr.  Townshend  was  of  Democratic  antecedents, 
and  Colonel  Morse  had  formerly  acted  with  the  Whig  party. 

It  was  proposed  by  one  of  the  Whig  members,  that  all  legis 
lative  questions  should  be  canvassed  and  decided  in  caucus,  and 


92  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

that  all  the  Free-Soilers  should  consider  themselves  as  pledged 
and  bound  to  vote  in  the  Senate  and  House  as  the  majority  of 
the  caucus  should  determine.  To  this  all  present  were  asked 
to  give  distinct  personal  consent,  and  all  consented  except  Dr. 
Townshend  and  Colonel  Morse.  The  former  said  that  he  could 
not  pledge  himself  to  take  a  Whig  view  of  all  the  questions  pre 
sented  for  legislative  action,  as  inevitably  he  must  if  he  consented 
to  be  governed  as  was  proposed.  Eleven  of  the  thirteen  members 
of  the  caucus  were  practically  Whigs.  He  expressed  a  willing 
ness  at  all  times  to  consult  with  them,  but  he  reserved  to  himself 
the  right  to  vote  according  to  his  own  convictions  of  duty,  and 
as  in  his  judgment  the  cause  of  freedom  should  require.  Colonel 
Morse  fully  indorsed  the  position  taken  by  Dr.  Townshend,  and 
also  declined  to  give  the  required  pledge.  Hereupon,  one  of 
the  Whig  members  proposed  the  expulsion  of  both  Townshend 
and  Morse  from  the  caucus.  In  reply  to  this,  Dr.  Townshend 
was  allowed  the  opportunity  to  say,  that  eleven  of  the  members 
present  had  been  elected  by  Whig  votes,  and  were  therefore  not 
independent  of  the  Whig  party ;  and  that  as  only  Colonel  Morse 
and  himself  had  been  elected  in  opposition  to  the  candidates  of 
both  the  old  parties,  they  (that  is  Colonel  Morse  and  himself) 
would  in  future  consider  themselves  as  the  true  Free-Soil  party 
in  the  Legislature,  and  would  not  thereafter  consult  with  any 
members  who  had  been  elected  otherwise  than  as  they  had  been — 
as  Independent  Democrats.  Morse  and  Townshend  then  retired 
from  the  caucus. 

The  importance  of  this  action  will  be  fully  understood  when 
the  reader  is  informed  that  the  eleven  Whig  Free-Soilers,  united 
with  the  Old-line  Whig  members  of  the  Legislature,  exactly 
equaled  in  numbers  the  Old-line  Democrats  ;  and  that  in  joint 
ballot  of  Senate  and  House,  Morse  and  Townshend  held  the 
"  balance  of  power." 

Under  these  circumstances,  Morse  and  Townshend  at  once 
became  objects  of  much  natural  solicitude  to  both  Whigs  and 
Democrats ;  and  on  their  side,  conscious  of  the  strength  of  their 
position,  and  that  they  sought  no  selfish  ends,  they  became  ex 
acting  for  the  right,  as  they  understood  it,  and  secured  at  length 
not  only  the  repeal  of  the  "  black  laws  "  and  the  election  of  Mr. 
Chase  to  the  United  States  Senate,  but  prevented  the  election 


THE  MORSE  AND  TOWNSHEND  COALITION.  93 

of  any  known  pro-slavery  man  to  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  or 
inferior  courts  of  the  State ;  great  and  important  results,  indeed ! 
wrought  as  they  were  by  two  men  who  belonged  to  a  political 
organization  which  was  at  that  time  both  hated  and  feared ! 

Colonel  Morse  had  long  been  a  near  neighbor  and  friend  of 
Joshua  R.  Giddings — the  distinguished  and  courageous  anti- 
slavery  agitator  in  Northern  Ohio — and  desired  his  election  to 
the  Senate.  Dr.  Townshend  desired  the  election  of  Mr.  Chase, 
but  both  cared  more  for  the  antislavery  cause  than  for  the  ele 
vation  of  any  particular  man,  or  for  the  advancement  of  any 
party.  They  consulted,  and  determined  that  Colonel  Morse 
should  confer  with  leading  Whig  members  with  a  view  to  union 
in  political  action.  The  basis  of  the  proposed  union  was,  that 
if  the  Whigs  would  join  Morse  and  Townshend  in  procuring 
the  repeal  of  the  "  black  laws,"  and  the  election  of  Mr.  Giddings 
to  the  United  States  Senate,  they  would  join  the  Whigs  in 
electing  the  Whig  candidates  into  the  State  and  judicial  offices. 
Dr.  Townshend  was  at  the  same  time  authorized  to  confer  with 
leading  Democrats,  and  to  arrange  with  them  a  union,  if  the 
Whigs  should  decline — the  conditions  being  that,  if  the  Demo 
crats  would  join  in  the  repeal  of  the  "  black  laws "  and  the 
election  of  Mr.  Chase  to  the  United  States  Senate,  they — Morse 
and  Townshend,  the  Independent  Democratic  party  in  the  Legis 
lature — would  unite  to  support  certain  Democratic  measures  and 
nominations. 

The  great  majority  of  the  Whig  members  promptly  acceded 
to  the  proposed  coalition,  but  three  or  four  "  silver-grays  "  were 
perseveringly  obstinate,  and  finally  defeated  it ;  not  because 
they  found  in  it  any  culpable  degree  of  corruption,  but  because 
they  were  too  intensely  pro-slavery  to  be  brought  into  the  sup 
port  of  so  avowed  and  resolute  an  antislavery  candidate  as  Mr. 
Giddings. 

The  whole  body  of  the  Democrats  chose  to  accept  the  alliance ; 
nor  was  it  difficult  for  them  to  do  so,  for  the  reasons  particularly, 
that  they  were  unembarrassed  by  the  necessity  of  subordinating 
their  action  to  the  dictation  of  a  national  Democratic  Adminis 
tration  ;  and  because,  secondly,  there  were  some  Old-line  members 
sufficiently  imbued  with  antislavery  sentiments  to  prefer  Mr. 
Chase  to  any  other  candidate.  These  exerted  a  large  influence 


-VT  T  tr  f  T3 


94.  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CEASE. 

in  bringing  about  the  result ;  and  the  arrangement,  first  made 
between  Colonel  Morse  and  Dr.  Townshend,  and  afterward  be 
tween  both  of  them  and  the  Democrats,  was  faithfully  carried 
out  by  all  the  parties  to  it.  It  had  no  reference  to  the  admission 
of  Pugh  and  Pierce,  however,  for  that  had  been  determined 
before  the  coalition  was  formed. 

Mr.  Chase  was  elected  on  the  22d  of  February,  1849,  on  the 
third  ballot.  He  received  the  vote  of  every  Old-line  Democrat, 
and  of  Morse  and  Townshend. 

His  election  was  of  course  deeply  exasperating  to  the  Whigs 
throughout  the  State,  and  the  passions  then  excited  no  doubt 
greatly  affected  his  political  fortunes  in  his  after-life.  They 
made  the  most  virulent  charges  of  corruption  and  of  bargain 
and  sale ;  all  of  them  founded  upon  the  facts  above  written. 
The  admission  of  Pugh  and  Pierce  was  peculiarly  and  especially 
irritating ;  and  of  all  the  circumstances  preliminary  to  the  elec 
tion  was  the  particular  one  upon  which  the  most  serious  impu 
tations  were  cast ;  but  the  subsequent  political  action  of  the 
people  of  Hamilton  County  and  of  the  State  at  large,  was  a 
complete  vindication  of  the  Democrats,  both  Old-line  and  Inde 
pendent,  who  took  part  in  these  transactions.  The  leaders  in 
the  Townshend  and  Morse  coalition  were  afterward  honored 
by  the  people  in  various  emphatic  ways.  Dr.  Townshend  was 
in  1850  elected  to  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  Ohio ;  after 
ward  to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  and  now  (1874)  is  a 
professor  in  the  Agricultural  College  of  Ohio.  Colonel  Morse 
was  reflected  to  the  Legislature,  and  was  in  1850  made  Speaker 
of  the  House  of  Representatives — a  special  and  distinguished 
mark,  on  the  part  of  the  people  of  the  State,  of  their  approval 
of  his  action  in  1849.  George  E.  Pugh  was  elected  to  the 
Legislature  a  second  time ;  then  Attorney-General  of  the  State, 
and  then  Senator  of  the  United  States.  Stanley  Matthews, 
Alexander  Long,  Eufus  P.  Spalding,  and  others  (in  the  Legis 
lature  and  out  of  it),  who  were  connected  with  the  "  Free-Soil 
firm  of  Morse  and  Townshend  " — as  the  coalition  was  familiarly 
called  in  the  party  slang  of  the  times — have  since  been  the  re 
cipients  of  public  favor. 

Very  early  in  his  public  career,  Mr.  Chase  had  distinctly 
announced  his  purpose  to  subordinate  all  other  subjects  of 


MR.   CHASE'S  ELECTION.  95 

political  action  to  the  paramount  one  of  detaching  the  Federal 
Government  from  any  and  all  responsibility  for  human  slavery. 
He  had  repeatedly  declared  his  settled  purpose  to  act  with  either 
of  the  great  parties  which  should  take  this  ground.  The  posi 
tion  of  the  Old-line  Democracy  of  Ohio  in  1849  was,  in  profession 
at  least,  nearly  if  not  wholly  up  to  the  standards  of  the  Liberty 
men.  It  seemed  entirely  probable  that  they  might  come  into 
complete  accord  with  the  Independent  Democrats;  and  upon 
this  conviction  Mr.  Chase  declared  his  intention  to  act  with 
them  in  State  politics,  so  long  as  they  maintained  that  position, 
and  did  so  in  the  fall  elections  of  1849,  1850  and  1851. 

"  I  see,"  said  Mr.  Chase,  in  a  letter  to  Colonel  Morse,  under 
date  of  Washington,  March  14,  1849—"  I  see  that  the  Whig 
papers  are  pouring  out  their  denunciations  upon  me.  I  could 
not  prevent  them  if  I  would.  But  if  the  Free-S  oilers  had 
united  with  the  Whigs  in  electing  their  officers,  the  tone  of 
these  Whig  papers  would  be  far  different.  We  must  be  con 
tent  to  endure.  We  have  done  no  wrong  in  endeavoring  to 
settle,  in  conformity  to  justice,  the  vexed  questions  which  grew 
out  of  the  apportionment  law,  or  by  electing  fit  men — though 
Democrats  not  of  our  organization — to  office,  or  by  receiving 
the  aid  of  such  Democrats  in  the  repeal  of  the  <  black  laws ' 
and  the  election  of  free  Democrats  to  office.  Beyond  this, 
we  have  not  meddled  with  the  questions  between  the  old  par 
ties.  We  leave  those  questions  to  be  considered  by  the  people, 
in  the  light  of  the  principles  laid  down  in  our  platform,  and 
to  the  action  of  a  future  Legislature.  For  my  own  part,  I  am 
conscious  of  nothing  which  justifies  this  abuse  of  me  ;  nor  shall 
I  retaliate  it.  In  the  position  to  which  I  have  been  called, 
it  will  be  my  aim  to  deserve  the  confidence  of  the  people  of 
Ohio  and  of  the  entire  Northwest,  by  striving  to  bring  the 
national  Government  back  to  the  principles  of  the  Ordinance 
of  1787,  and  by  promoting  measures  calculated  to  advance 
their  interests  and  develop  the  resources  of  their  States." 
"  Thanks  for  your  cordial  congratulations,"  he  wrote  to  his 
friend  Cleveland,  about  the  same  time.  "  I  rejoice  to  know 
that  my  election  gives  such  universal  satisfaction  to  those 
who  fight  the  battles  of  freedom  so  bravely  and  with  such 
inflexible  determination  in  the  ranks  of  the  Liberty  party. 


96  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

I  shall  strive  to  deserve  the  generous  confidence  which  they 
tender  to  me  in  advance,  though  I  cannot  hope  to  realize  the 
expectations  of  friends  so  partial  as  yourself.  I  lack  experience 
and  that  prompt  sagacity  which  is  a  substitute  for  experience, 
and  often  so  sufficient  a  substitute.  But  I  shall  try  to  do  right. 
I  hope  that  I  may  have  the  strength  and  resolution  necessary 
to  do  right  in  the  midst  of  circumstances  the  most  menacing,  or 
most  persuasive  to  the  opposite  course !  I  already  see  that  I 
will  require  much  of  both,  in  matters  quite  independent  of  sla 
very  questions." 

Whether  coalitions  such  as  that  by  which  Mr.  Chase  was 
first  elected  to  the  American  Senate  are  warranted  by  the 
maxims  of  a  strict  political  morality,  is  a  question  which 
every  reader  will  determine  for  himself.  But  wherever  parlia 
mentary  government  exists,  they  have  happened  more  or  less 
frequently,  and  will  continue  to  happen  to  the  end  of  time. 
Those  political  philosophers  who  object  to  them,  must  devise 
some  improvement  upon  the  system  by  which  they  can  be  made 
impossible. 

— Long  after  the  discussion  of  the  events  attending  upon 
the  election  of  Mr.  Chase  had  ceased ;  after  every  one  of  them 
had  been  laid  bare,  and  exhibited  in  the  worst  possible  view  of 
which  party  rancor  was  capable,  the  people  of  Ohio  rendered 
a  final  verdict  upon  the  whole  matter  by  twice  electing  Mr. 
Chase  to  be  their  chief  magistrate,  and  a  second  time — by  the 
overwhelming  vote  of  their  delegates — choosing  him  to  be  a  rep 
resentative  of  their  State  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 

....  Subjoined  is  a  brief  history  of  the  repeal  of  the  black 
laws  of  Ohio,  referred  to  in  the  preceding  account  of  the  cir 
cumstances  attending  upon  the  first  election  of  Mr.  Chase  to 
the  United  States  Senate : 

In  the  canvass  that  preceded  the  fall  election  of  1848  in 
Ohio,  the  repeal  of  the  law  which  excluded  colored  people  from 
the  witness-box  had  been  favored  by  a  considerable  number  of 
Whigs  and  opposed  by  a  large  majority  of  the  Democrats.  The 
Free-Soilers  had  demanded  the  repeal  of  all  laws  making  distinc 
tions  on  account  of  color.  When  the  Legislature  met  at  Colum 
bus  in  December,  it  was  soon  ascertained  that  the  Free-Soil 
members  held  the  balance  of  power,  and  it  naturally  became  an 


REPEAL  OF  THE  BLACK  LAWS.  97 

object  with  both  the  other  parties  to  secure  their  adhesion. 
But  these  members  declared  their  determination  to  unite  with 
no  party  which  would  not  vote  for  the  repeal  of  the  Hack  laws, 
as  the  laws  making  distinctions  on  account  of  color  were  com 
monly  called.  Mr.  Chase  was  in  Columbus  at  this  time,  in  pro 
fessional  attendance  upon  the  courts,  and  was  much  consulted 
by  the  Free-Soil  members  and  especially  by  those  who  had 
been  elected  without  aid  from  either  of  the  old  parties. 

His  advice-  was  against  cooperation  with  any  party  except 
upon  condition  of  the  repeal  of  the  black  laws,  and  this  advice 
was  the  more  readily  adopted  as  it  was  in  complete  unison  with 
the  views  of  the  members  to  whom  it  was  given. 

The  laws  called  the  Mack  laws  required  colored  people  to  give 
bonds  for  good  behavior  as  a  condition  of  residence ;  excluded 
them  from  the  schools  ;  denied  them  the  right  of  testifying  in 
the  courts  when  a  white  man  was  party  on  either  side;  and 
subjected  them  to  other  unjust  and  degrading  disabilities.  Mr. 
Chase  had  been  an  open  and  consistent  opponent  of  all  this  in 
justice  for  years,  and  was  ready  to  take  advantage  of  a  condi 
tion  of  things  which  offered  an  opportunity  of  incorporating 
his  views  into  the  legislation  of  the  State.  He,  therefore,  think 
ing  "  that  the  best  day  was  well  employed  in  such  a  work," 
devoted  an  entire  Sunday  in  January,  1849,  to  the  preparation 
of  such  a  bill  as  he  thought  would  be  least  likely  to  excite 
violent  hostility  among  the  members  of  the  Legislature,  and  at 
the  same  time  accomplish  the  objects  of  the  Free-Soilers.  The 
first  section  of  the  bill  provided  for  separate  schools  for  colored 
children  in  localities  where  the  local  authorities  should  deter 
mine  their  admission  to  the  ordinary  schools  inexpedient ;  and 
for  the  care  and  direction  of  these  separate  schools,  wherever 
they  might  be  established,  by  trustees  elected  by  the  colored 
people  themselves ;  and  the  concluding  section  provided  for  the 
repeal  of  all  laws  making  distinctions  on  account  of  color. 
This  bill  went  so  far  beyond  any  reform  in  this  respect  that  had 
ever  been  thought  possible,  except  after  many  years  of  arduous 
labor,  that  hardly  any  one  believed  it  at  all  likely  to  pass.  But 
Mr.  Chase  was  confident  and  the  Free-Soil  members  were  reso 
lute.  They  adopted  his  bill,  and  consulted  with  other  members. 
As  observed  in  the  body  of  this  chapter,  the  Ohio  Democrats 
7 


9g  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

were  pretty  strongly  imbued,  at  this  time,  with  antislavery  sen 
timents.  They  had  recently  witnessed  the  election  by  the  Whigs 
of  a  Southern  slaveholder  over  their  Northern  Democratic  candi 
date,  and  free  from  the  embarrassment  of  a  national  administra 
tion  or  a  pending  national  political  contest,  were  predisposed  to 
a  favorable  consideration  of  the  Free-Soil  proposition.  This 
predisposition  was  largely  due  also  to  their  desire  to  have  the 
cooperation  of  the  Free-Soil  members  in  the  legislative  appoint 
ments  and  elections  about  to  be  made.  At  any  rate,  they  took 
the  bill  into  consideration  and  agreed  to  support  it. 

Thereupon  it  was  introduced  into  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  by  Cofonel  John  F.  Morse,  and  was  carried  by  a  large  ma 
jority  ;  the  "Whigs  following,  for  the  most  part,  the  lead  of  the 
Democrats ;  and  both  parties  voting  for  it  with  a  considerable 
degree  of  unanimity.  It  was  then  sent  to  the  Senate,  where  it 
could  doubtless  have  been  passed  at  once,  but  for  a  motion  by  a 
Whig  Senator  to  refer  it  to  a  committee.  The  motion  prevailed ; 
the  bill  was  referred ;  and  was  reported  with  amendments  which 
excepted  from  the  repeal  the  laws  which  denied  to  the  colored 
people  the  right  to  sit  on  juries,  and  the  right  to  poor-house 
relief.  These  amendments  were  adopted  by  decided  votes  in 
the  Senate,  and  concurred  in  by  the  House,  after  considerable 
opposition  from  leading  Democrats — and  the  bill  thus  amended, 
became  a  law. 

Prompt  action  in  a  favorable  conjuncture  of  circumstances, 
thus  secured  the  enactment  by  decisive  majorities  in  both 
Houses,  of  a  humane  and  beneficent  law,  which,  under  almost 
any  other  circumstances,  would  have  been  rejected  by  majorities 
equally  decisive.  It  was  one  of  those  acts  in  advance  of  the 
sentiments  and  yet  in  accordance  with  the  moral  convictions  of 
the  people,  which  required  but  tact  and  courage  to  be  accom 
plished,  but  once  accomplished,  are  not  likely  to  be  reversed. 
It  relieved  the  colored  people  from  all  their  most  onerous 
disabilities ;  gave  them  entrance  into  the  schools,  and  awakened 
great  hopes  for  the  future.  Laws  were  afterward  enacted  in 
derogation  of  the  right  of  suffrage  allowed  by  the  constitution 
to  colored  persons,  half  and  more  than  one-half  white,  but  the 
advantages  gained  to  them  by  the  act  of  1849  were  never  lost. 


LETTER  TO  THE  HON.  JOSHUA  R.   GIDDINGS. 


NOTES  TO   CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  following  extracts  illustrate  Mr.  Chase's  views  on  the  subjects 
referred  to,  and  properly  belong  to  this  period  in  this  history. 


Extracts  from  some  remarks  made  by  Mr.  Chase  before  the  Liberty 
Convention  held  at  Columbus,  December  29,  1842 :  He  said  he  did  not 
know  how  far  Liberty  men  were  agreed  upon  questions  of  money  and  trade, 
nor  did  he  consider  unanimity  as  essential.  "  Establish  truth  and  justice," 
he  said,  "  restore  the  Government  to  its  true  sphere  of  action,  and  there 
would  be  little  difficulty  in  settling  the  other  questions."  Individually, 
he  would  confess  his  opinions  without  reserve.  "  The  great  question  in 
respect  of  the  currency  seemed  to  be,  whether  credit  could  be  made  to  serve 
the  purpose  of  money.  If  it  could — if  paper  could  be  made  the  actual 
representative  of  specie  dollars,  always  exchangeable  for  specie  at  the  will 
of  the  holder,  without  loss  or  considerable  inconvenience,  he  had  no  objec 
tion  to  a  mixed  currency.  But  he  was  utterly  opposed  to  a  mere  paper- 
money  system — to  all  bank  frauds — to  all  bank  suspensions  on  their  issues 
or  deposits — to  all  bank  expansions.  Touching  the  question  of  foreign 
trade,  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  Creator  of  all  designed  that  the  different 
nations  of  the  earth  should  live  together  in  harmony  and  mutual  inter 
course,  supplying  reciprocally  the  wants  of  each  other,  and  that  all  unneces 
sary  restrictions  upon  intercourse  and  mutual  supply  were  wrong  in  prin 
ciple  and  impolitic  in  practice.  But  that  inasmuch  as  the  duties  on  imports 
were  the  most  convenient  sources  of  revenue,  and  the  settled  policy  of  the 
Government  was  to  raise  the  revenue  in  that  manner,  he  could  see  no 
objection  to  so  arranging  those  duties  as  to  encourage  any  branches  of 
production  or  manufactures  which  would,  in  a  reasonable  time,  become  so 
established  as  to  maintain  themselves  without  protection." 

ii. 

Extract  from  a  letter  to  the  Hon.  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  under  date 
of  August  15,  1846:  ....  "I  will  give  you  briefly  my  own  view.  I 
cannot  adopt  a  Whig  antislayery  platform,  because  I  do  not  at  all  concur 
in  Whig  views  of  public  policy,  either  as  an  antislavery  man  or  a  simple 
citizen.  I  think  that  the  political  views  of  the  Democrats  are,  in  the 
main,  sound ;  and  the  chief  fault  I  have  to  accuse  them  of  is,  that  they  do 
not  carry  out  their  principles  in  reference  to  the  subject  of  slavery.  I  do 
not  believe  in  a  high  tariff,  in  a  Bank  of  the  United  States,  or  a  system  of 
corporate  banking.  I  am  not  willing,  therefore,  to  act  with  a  party  which 
will  only  make  antislavery  one  of  the  items  of  its  political  faith,  or  rather 
give  to  certain  objects  of  antislayery  action  a  place  among  its  measures. 
Of  course,  I  am  very  far  from  being,  willing  to  act  with  the  Whig  party, 
which  does  not,  as  a  party,  adopt  any  antislavery  faith  or  propose  any 
antislavery  measures.  Lest  I  may  be  misunderstood,  I  will  add  that  were 
the  Whig  party  to  adopt  Liberty  principles  and  measures  as  paramount  in 
importance,  I  should  give  to  its  candidates,  if  honest  and  capable,  a  cordial 
support — however  I  might  differ  as  to  banks,  trade,  etc.,  etc.,  which  I  and 
they  would  then  agree  in  regarding  as  subordinate. 


LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"You  have  here  my  ideas  as  to  the  only  basis  upon  which  an  antislavery 
party  can  stand.  It  may  be  true  that  antislavery  men  in  the  other  parties 
can  render  much  service  to  the  cause  of  freedom  by  availing  ^themselves, 
within  their  respective  organizations,  of  the  antislavery  sentiment  there 
and  the  pressure  from  without ;  and  I  have  sometimes  thought  that  if  all 
the  antislavery  men  whose  opinions  are  Democratic,  should  act  with  that 
party  in  this  State,  they  might  change  its  character  wholly.  But  I  have 
not  been  sanguine  enough  in  this  idea  to  make  it  a  basis  of  action,  though 
much  urged  to  it  by  some  friends  now  in  the  Democratic  party,  who  are 
pleased  to  say  that  my  influence,  joined  with  their  own,  might  effect  the 
desired  object  of  making  the  action  of  the  party  in  relation  to  slavery  con 
sistent  with  its  general  principles.  My  fear  is,  that  if  there  were  no  party 
distinctly  and  earnestly  antislavery,  parties  divided  by  other  questions 
would,  as  they  always  have,  compromise  away  liberty."  .... 

in. 

Extracts  from  a  letter  to  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  under  date  October  20, 
1846:  ....  "I  have  failed  in  expressing  myself  with  as  much  clearness 
as  I  wished,  if  I  have  conveyed  to  your  mind  the  idea  that  I  am  prepared 
to  accede  to  any  political  union  which  is  not  based  upon  the  substantial 
principles  and  measures  of  the  Liberty  men.  What  I  am  willing  to  give  up 
are,  names  and  separate  organizations ; — what  I  am  not  willing  to  give  up 
are,  principles  and  consistent  action,  both  with  reference  to  men  and 
measures  in  accordance  with  principles.  .  .  .  Let  me  state  to  you  briefly 
my  idea  of  the  grounds  which,  in  my  judgment,  should  determine  the 
course  of  an  honest  man  in  political  action  in  reference  to  the  subject  of 
slavery. 

"  If  I  were  a  Whig,  in  the  Whig  party,  and  believed  that  by  the  action 
of  that  party,  the  overthrow  of  the  slave-power  and  the  extinction  of 
slavery  could  be  speedily  achieved,  I  would  act  with  and  in  that  party ; 
supporting,  however,  for  office  only  antislavery  men. 

"If  I  were  a  Democrat,  in  the  Democratic  party,  and  entertained  a 
belief  as  to  that  party  as  stated  above  in  regard  to  the  Whig  party,  I 
would  act  in  and  with  the  Democratic  party,  supporting  for  office,  how 
ever,  only  antislavery  men. 

"  If  I  were  persuaded  (as  I  am)  that  there  is  now  no  reasonable  pros 
pect  that  either  the  Whig  or  the  Democratic  party,  constituted  as  both  are 
of  slaveholders  and  non-slaveholders,  and,  as  national  parties,  admitting 
no  antislavery  articles  into  their  creed  and  much  less  avowed  antislavery 
measures  into  their  action,  can  at  present  be  relied  on  for  cordial  and 
inflexible  hostility  to  slavery  and  the  slave-power,  I  would  (and  of  course 
do)  abstain  from  cooperation  with  either  of  those  parties,  and  act  in  and 
with  the  only  party  with  which  I  agree  in  principle  and  action  in  relation 
to  the  paramount  political  question  of  the  day."  .  .  . 

IV. 

To  Charles  E.  Miller,  of  Toledo. 

"CINCINNATI,  July  4, 1849. 

.  .  .  .  "  All  the  omens  seem  auspicious  to  our  cause.  In  some  of  the 
free  States,  the  entire  body  of  the  old  Democracy  adopts  our  platform, 
and  rallies  with  us  under  the  common  standard  of  the  Democratic  faith, 
unsullied  by  compromise  with  oppression.  In  others,  numerous  individuals 
and  sections  favor  our  views  and  are  prepared  for  union,  while  portions 
of  the  party,  prompted  by  various  considerations,  still  hold  back. 


LETTER  TO  MR.  BRESLIN.  101 

"  Besides  these  accessions  of  strength,  the  progressive  wing  of  the  old 
Whig  party,  animated  by  a  generous  zeal  for  freedom  and  equal  rights, 
and  refusing  any  longer  to  be  directed  by  leaders  of  doubtful  policy  or 
principle  in  respect  to  slavery,  arrays  itself  boldly  and  decidedly  on  our 
side.  Evidently,  there  can  be  but  two  parties  in  the  free  States.  One  of 
them  must  be  the  free  Democracy,  animated  and  guided  by  those  measures 
of  equal  rights  which  have  ever  constituted  the  basis  of  the  Democratic 
creed ;  and  the  other,  the  party  of  expediency,  compromise  and  conserv 
atism,  by  whatever  name  designated.  .  .  . 

"  Under  these  circumstances,  all  that  we  have  to  do  is  to  go  steadily 
forward,  trusting  in  God.  Our  cause  is  our  strength.  Unswerving  fidelity 
to  our  principles  and  inflexible  perseverance  in  united  effort  will,  with 
his  blessing,  give  us  the  victory." 

v. 

To  John  G.  Breslin. 

"CINCINNATI,  July  80,  1849. 

"  I  observe  indications  in  various  quarters  of  a  disposition  on  the  part 
of  influential  gentlemen  to  interpose  difficulties  in  the  way  of  a  cordial 
union  between  the  Old- line  Democracy  and  the  free  Democracy,  by  insist 
ing  on  conditions  to  which  the  latter  cannot  agree  without  the  sacrifice 
of  principles  which  they  hold  far  dearer  than  party  success. 

"  The  free  Democracy,  holding  in  common  with  the  Old-line  Democ 
racy,  the  cardinal  and  essential  doctrines  of  the  Democratic  faith,  believe 
that  the  time  has  come  for  the  application  of  those  doctrines  to  the  sub 
ject  of  slavery  as  well  as  to  the  subjects  of  currency  and  trade.  They 
believe  that  slavery  is  the  worst  form  of  despotism.  The  ownership  of 
one  man  by  another  is  the  most  absolute  subjection  known  to  human 
experience.  No  Democrat  who  has  any  real  living  faith  in  the  great  cardinal 
doctrine  of  the  Democracy,  that  all  men  have  equal  rights  by  nature,-  and 
that  the  only  legitimate  object  of  government  Is  to  maintain  and  secure 
these  rights,  can  doubt  that  slaveholding  is  grossly  inconsistent  with 
Democratic  principles. 

"  It  is  not  necessary  to  advert  to  the  circumstances  which,  for  many 
years,  prevented  either  of  the  great  parties  from  taking  ground  against 
slavery.  It  is  enough  that  circumstances  are  now  changed.  The  acquisi 
tion  of  Mexican  territories  has  presented  the  question  of  slavery  in  new 
aspects.  Heretofore  the  slave-power  has  been  content  with  retaining 
slave  territory  as  slave  territory  ;  now  it  seeks  to  subject  free  territory  to 
the  blight  of  slavery.  .This  enormous  pretension  has  led  to  a  more  general 
examination  of  the  constitutional  relations  of  the  General  Government  to 
the  slave  system  ;  and  that  examination  has  fastened  the  conviction  in  the 
minds  of  thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands  that  the  Government  of 
the  Union  is  bound  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territories,  and  to  exert  all 
its  legitimate  and  constitutional  powers  to  limit,  localize  and  discourage  it, 
and  especially  to  prohibit  its  existence  in  all  places  within  the  sphere  of 
its  exclusive  jurisdiction. 

"  This  is  the  conviction  of  the  Democracy.  They  have  announced  it 
over  and  over  again,  and  are  pledged  to  govern  their  political  action  by 
it.  This  pledge  they  will  undoubtedly  redeem. 

"  Now,  what  is  to  hinder  the  reception  of  this  faith  by  the  Old-line 
Democracy  ?  What  shall  prevent  their  bold  and  frank  avowal  off  it  ? 
What  should  interfere  with  manly  and  straightforward  action  in  consist 
ency  with  it  ? 

"  I  can  see  but  one  thing — the  alliance,  so  called,  with  the  slaveholders 


102  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

themselves — the  fear  of  losing  their  political  support  and  influence  in  a 
presidential  election. 

"  Now,  it  is  very  certain  that  no  consideration  of  mere  political  expe 
diency  ought  to  induce  the  Democracy  to  refrain  from  carrying  out  their 
own  principles ;  and  it  seems  to  me  equally  certain  that  political  expedi 
ency  and  duty  at  this  time  coincide. 

"  For  what  will  be  the  cost  to  the  Democracy  of  the  alliance  with  the 
slaveholders  in  a  presidential  campaign  ? 

"  To  determine  this  question,  it  must  first  be  seen  what  the  slavehold 
ers  demand  as  the  price  of  their  alliance.  This  demand  is  easily  stated. 

"  It  is  non-intervention  upon  the  subject  of  slavery.  That  is,  Northern 
men  may  think  and  act  at  home  as  they  choose,  and  Southern  men  like 
wise  ;  but  when  Northern  men  and  Southern  men  meet  at  Washington, 
either  in  executive  or  legislative  capacities,  they  must  not  take  any  action 
against  slavery,  but  leave  the  slaveholders  at  liberty  to  introduce  slave- 
holding  wherever  they  can. 

"  This,  if  I  understand  it,  is  the  ground  of  the  Washington  Union, 
which  has  been  approved  by  a  number  of  Democratic  prints  in  the  free 
States,  and  universally,  I  believe — as  well  it  might  be — in  the  slave  States. 

"  Now,  it  is  my  deliberate  opinion  that  it  is  utterly  impracticable  to 
unite  the  Democracy  on  this  platform  in  the  free  States. 

"  The  free  Democracy  can  never  accede  to  it;  and  maintaining,  as  they 
do,  the  cardinal  doctrines  of  Democracy,  and  occupying  as  they  will,  a 
bold  and  independent  position  on  the  slavery  question  and  every  other, 
the  people — who  love  boldness  and  independence — will  rally  round  them 
in  such  numbers  that  it  will  be  utterly  impossible  for  compromising  De 
mocracy  to  carry  a  respectable  number  of  free  States ;  and  they  must,  as 
heretofore,  divide  the  free  States  with  compromising  Whigism.  Success, 
therefore,  on  the  non-intervention  platform  is,  for  the  old  Democracy,  quite 
out  of  the  question. 

"  The  free  Democracy  believe  in  non-intervention,  such  as  the  Consti 
tution  requires ;  non-intervention  by  Congress  with  the  legislation  of  the 
States  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  But  neither  the  history  of  the  country 
nor  the  Constitution  of  the  country,  warrants  non-intervention  by  Con. 

fress  with  slavery  in  Territories  and  elsewhere  without  the  limits  of  any 
tate,  but  within  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the  national  Government. 
Slavery  in  such  Territory  or  places  cannot,  under  a  strict  construction  of 
the  Constitution,  exist  at  all.     Slavery  in  such  Territory  or  places  ought 
at  least  to  be  prohibited  by  Congress. 

"  I  have  regretted  to  see  certain  expressions  attributed  to  John  Yan 
Buren  calculated  to  revive  unpleasant  feeling — such  as,  that  the  national 
Democratic  party  is  dissolved.  I  would  prefer  to  say,  that  the  national 
Democratic  party  is  in  process  of  regeneration — in  progress,  obeying  that 
law  of  progress  which  all  its  doctrines  recognize,  from  the  old  platform  of 
non-intervention  to  the  Jeflersonian  platform  of  slavery  restriction  and  dis 
couragement.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  party  in  the  free  States  ought  at 
once  to  advance  to  the  Jeffersonian  ground,  and  there  unite  in  indissolu 
ble  phalanx  with  their  brethren  of  the  free  Democracy.  Let  the  party  in 
the  slave  States  advance  to  the  same  ground.  Perhaps  in  advancing  some 
may  desert  and  go  over  to  the  Conservatives.  Possibly  in  the  slave  States 
the  party  must  go  into  a  temporary  minority.  Let  it  be  so.  The  compen 
sation  will  be  found  in  the  concentration,  unanimity,  and  the  invincibility 
of  the  united  Democracy  in  the  free  States.  Triumphant  in  the  free  States, 
and  strong  by  the  strength  of  their  principles  even  in  the  slave  States,  the 
Democracy  can  elect  all  its  national  candidates,  under  such  circumstances, 
in  despite  of  all  opposition. 


THE  MORSE  AND  TOWNSHEND  COALITION.  103 

"  Such  are  my  views.  I  feel  strong  confidence  that  time  will  prove 
their  correctness.  I  am  a  Democrat,  and  I  feel  earnestly  solicitous  for  the 
success  of  the  Democratic  organization  and  the  triumph  of  its  principles. 
The  doctrines  of  the  Democracy  on  the  subjects  of  trade,  currency  and 
special  privileges,  command  the  entire  assent  of  my  judgment.  But  I  can 
not,  while  boldly  asserting  their  principles  in  reference  to  those  subjects, 
shrink  from  their  just  application  to  slavery.  I  should  feel  guilty  of 
shameful  dereliction  of  duty  if  I  did.  You  know  what  multitudes  now 
sympathize  with  me,  and  how  truly.  It  is  this  very  fidelity  to  Democratic 
principles  which  makes  it  impossible  for  them  to  compromise  with  slavery. 
What  a  melancholy  spectacle  it  would  be  to  see  the  Democratic  party  em 
bracing  defeat  by  such  a  compromise,  and  thus  making  it  necessary  for 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  truest  Democrats  in  the  land  to  choose  be 
tween  adhesion  to  party  and  adhesion  to  principle  !  " 

VI. 

Extract  from  a  speech  of  Mr.  Chase  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
April  9,  1853  :  "  Let  me  say  to  all  who  concern  themselves  in  these  things, 
that  so  far  as  I  have  had  any  share  in  any  political  action  in  Ohio,  I  stand  S 
ready  to  meet  the  fullest  and  the  most  searching  scrutiny.  I  have  no  po-  i/ 
litical  secrets.  My  public  life  has  been  so  plain,  so  open,  that  he  who  ^ 
runs  may  read  its  record.  No  man  can  truthfully  say  that  I  have  ever  de 
viated,  upon  any  occasion  or  under  any  influence,  by  the  breadth  of  a 
hair,  from  the  path  which  fidelity  to  my  long-cherished  principles  required 
me  to  pursue.  It  is  true  that  I  acted  in  a  minority.  The  time  has  been 
when  I  stood  almost  alone.  Some  years  ago  when  I  first  promulgated 
those  political  opinions  which  have  ever  since  determined  my  action,  I 
found  few  sympathizers  or  supporters.  But  I  knew  those  principles  to  be 
sound.  I  believed  them  to  be  important ;  and  I  did  not  shrink  from  their 
defense  then  any  more  than  I  shrink  from  it  now,  when  their  abstract  cor 
rectness  is  generally  admitted  and  their  practical  application  is  resolutely 
demanded  by  tens  of  thousands  of  voters  at  the  ballot-box.  And  let  me 
say  to  gentlemen  that  they  are  indulging  a  vain  dream,  if  they  fancy  that 
those  principles  are  to  die  out  of  the  hearts  of  the  people.  They  will  go 
on  conquering  and  to  conquer.  You  may  depend  upon  it  that  the  faith 
of  freedom  is  neither  dead  nor  dying.  You  may  depend  upon  it  that  it 
has  lost  nothing  of  that  vital  energy  which  has  overcome  so  many  preju 
dices  and  changed  so  many  convictions.  The  advocates  of  that  faith 
shrink  from  no  discussion  ;  they  desire  it  rather.  They  court  investiga 
tion;  they  challenge  scrutiny.  They  know  that  the  more  their  principles 
and  measures  are  examined  and  scrutinized,  the  more  they  will  commend 
themselves  not  only  to  the  warm  and  generous  affections,  but  to  the  sober 
and  deliberate  judgments  of  the  American  people. 

"  And  now  let  me  further  say  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  circumstances 
of  my  election  which  I  desire  to  withdraw  from  scrutiny  here  or  elsewhere. 
There  happen  to  be  two  Democratic  parties  in  my  State.  The  political 
platforms  of  both  are  substantially  the  same  ;  but  one  insists  upon  the  na- ' 
tional  recognition  and  adoption  of  its  principles  as  the  condition  of  sup 
port  to  national  nominees  ;  the  other  has  heretofore  supported  such  nomi 
nees  without  any  real  condition.  The  former  is  known  as  the  Indepen 
dent  or  free  Democracy :  the  latter  as  the  Old-line  Democracy — and  many 
who  act  in  the  Old-line  party  hold  the  State  platform  very  cheap,  and  sym 
pathize  strongly  with  those  who  are  known  in  the  other  States  as  '  Hun 
kers.'  There  are  more,  however,  with  whom  the  principles  of  the  State 
platform  are  a  cherished  faith,  and  who  of  course  sympathize  more  strongly 


104  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

with  the  Independent  Democracy.  Some  two  years  ago,  when  no  national 
election  was  pending,  when  the  Old-line  Democracy  was  in  opposition  to 
the  national  Administration,  and  of  course  not  responsible  for  any  pro- 
slavery  action,  many  Independent  Democrats — myself  among  them — sup 
ported  the  Old-line  nominations.  At  this  election,  the  Old-line  ticket 
was  elected  by  a  large  majority  over  all  opposition.  Upon  no  other  occa 
sion,  for  many  years,  has  the  Old-line  State  ticket  received  an  absolute 
majority." 

A  Senator  inquired,  "  How  was  it  at  the  last  presidential  election  ?  " 
Mr.  Chase :  "  The  Independent  Democrats  unanimously  supported  their 
own  ticket,  and  the  Baltimore  nominees  lacked  fifteen  thousand  votes  of 
an  absolute  majority.  Well,  there  has  been  in  New  York  a  union  of  the 
Barnburners  and  Hunkers ;  and  no  small  pains  is  taken  at  the  other  end 
of  the  Avenue  and  at  this,  to  cement  and  consolidate  the  union.  We  have 
witnessed  a  pretty  careful  distribution  and  adjustment  of  the  offices  with 
this  view.  How  the  attempt  to  harmonize  these  discordant  elements  by 
the  potent  influence  of  patronage  will  succeed,  I  cannot  say.  But  we 
know  it  is  made,  and  we  know  it  is  the  most  common  thing  in  the  world, 
when  two  parties  or  two  sections  of  one  party,  having  some  common  ob 
jects,  unite  to  form  a  majority  over  a  third  party  hostile  to  those  objects, 
to  divide  the  offices  which  that  majority  has  to  fill,  between  the  sections 
which  compose  it.  Now,  it  so  happened  that  in  the  Legislature  of  Ohio  in 
1848-'49  no  party  had  a  majority.  The  Independent  Democrats,  it  is  true, 
were  few  in  number ;  but  the  Old-line  Democrats,  though  numerous,  were 
not  numerous  enough  to  effect  any  thing  by  themselves.  Under  these  cir 
cumstances,  that  which  was  most  natural  took  place :  the  Independent 
and  Old-line  Democrats  united.  But  there  was — and  I  am  proud  to  say 
it — no  sacrifice  of  principle  on  either  side.  The  Old-line  Democrats  voted 
for  me  because  they  knew  me  to  be  sound  in  the  Democratic  faith,  though 
Independent  in  party  action.  The  Independent  Democrats  voted  for  Old- 
line  nominees  for  Supreme  Judges,  who,  though  they  differed  from  them 
in  party  action,  yet  shared  their  general  opposition  to  the  extension  and 
nationalization  of  slavery.  Let  the  Senator  make  of  this  all  he  can.  I  see 
nothing  in  it  to  lament.  I  can  appeal  confidently  to  my  whole  course  here 
to  justify  the  confidence  reposed  in  me.  Nothing  has  transpired  in  the 
history  of  either  of  the  eminent  gentlemen,  elected  to  other  offices  at  the 
same  time,  to  make  the  Independent  Democrats  regret  the  votes  they  cast 
for  them.  Many  members  of  the  Legislature  who  participated  in  those 
elections  have  since  received  distinguished  proofs  of  public  confidence ; 
and  a  succession  of  Democratic  victories  instead  of  the  succession  of  de 
feats  which  had  for  years  marked  the  previous  history  of  the  Democratic 
party,  has  attested  the  wisdom  of  the  Old-line  Democrats  who  recom 
mended,  or  adopted,  or  approved  the  union. 

"  I  do  not  so  highly  value  a  seat  here  that  I  would  sacrifice  one  jot  or  tittle 
of  my  personal  independence  to  obtain  or  to  retain  it.  Nor  would  I  surrender 
any  political  principles  to  come  or  to  remain  here.  It  is  very  possible  I  mav 
..not  be  reflected.  I  shall  have  as  little  to  regret  in  that  event  as  any  man. 
I  am  entirely  willing,  whenever  the  people  of  my  State  indicate  that  such 
is  their  pleasure,  to  retire  from  the  scene.  I  have  said  on  another  occasion 
and  to  my  Democratic  constituents,  that  a  private  is  not  less  acceptable  to 
me  than  a  public  station.  I  said  it  sincerely  and  honestly.  I  have  ever 

S referred,  and  all  the  acts  of  my  life  will  prove  it,  action  with  a  minority 
i  defense  of  principles,  to  action  with  a  majority  and  to  any  position 
which  a  majority  can  confer,  in  disregard  of  principles." 


CHAPTEE    XIII. 

MB.  CHASE  TAKES  HIS  SEAT  IN  THE   SENATE — THIRTY-FIRST  CON 
GRESS SLAVERY  AGITATION — TAKES  NO  PART  IN  DEMOCRATIC 

CAUCUS QUESTION  OF  SLAVERY  IN  THE  DOMAIN  ACQUIRED  FROM 

MEXICO APPLICATION    OF  CALIFORNIA    FOR  ADMISSION   INTO 

THE  UNION PROPOSAL  OF  COMPROMISE SENATE  COMMITTEE  OF 

THIRTEEN REPORT  OF  THE  COMMITTEE EXTRACTS  FROM  MR. 

CHASE'S  SPEECH  ON  THE  MATTERS  INVOLVED  IN  THAT  REPORT. 

ME.  CHASE  was  elected  to  the  Senate  on  the  22d  of  Febru 
ary,  1849,  and  took  his  seat  as  a  member  of  that  body  on 
the  6th  of  March  ensuing ;  the  Senate  being  then  in  special  ex 
ecutive  session  for  the  transaction  of  business  immediately  neces 
sary  upon  the  accession  of  General  Taylor  to  the  presidency. 
Little  else  was  done,  except  to  debate  the  validity  of  the  election 
of  General  Shields.  It  happened,  however,  that  during  this 
special  session  Eudolphus  Dickinson,  a  member  of  the  House 
from  Ohio,  died  in  Washington,  and  it  devolved  upon  Mr.  Chase 
to  make  the  customary  obituary  address  and  move  the  customary 
resolutions ;  a  task  he  performed,  he  says,  very  little  to  his  owu 
satisfaction. 

The  first  regular  session  of  the  Thirty-first  Congress  began 
on  the  3d  of  December,  1849,  in  the  midst  of  great  political  ex 
citement  and  agitation  not  only  in  Congress,  but  throughout  the 
whole  country.  "  It  is  not  to  be  denied,"  said  Mr.  Webster ;  * 
"  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  we  live  in  the  midst  of  strong  agita 
tions,  and  are  surrounded  by  dangers  to  our  institutions  of  gov 
ernment.  The  imprisoned  winds  are  let  loose.  The  East,  the 

1  In  Ms  celebrated  speech  of  March  7,  1850. 


106  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

West,  the  North,  and  the  stormy  South,  all  combine  to  throw 
the  whole  ocean  into  commotion,  to  toss  its  billows  to  the  skies, 
and  to  disclose  its  profoundest  depths."  Nearly  three  weeks 
were  spent  in  fruitless  efforts  to  organize  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  and  an  organization  was  at  last  effected  only  through 
proceedings  of  doubtful  constitutionality.  Pending  this  long 
struggle — which  was  frequently  interrupted  by  scenes  of  great 
disorder  and  tumult — the  Senate  did  no  other  business  than 
form  the  necessaiy  standing  committees  (carefully  ignoring  Mr. 
Chase  and  Mr.  Hale),  and  debate  somewhat  warmly  the  question 
of  admitting  Father  Theobald  Matthew,  an  Irish  Roman  Cath 
olic  priest — a  famous  promoter  of  temperance  and  of  known 
antislavery  sentiments — to  the  privileges  of  the  floor. 

On  his  advent  into  the  Senate  Mr.  Chase  found  there  Benton, 
Calhoun,  Clay,  Webster,  Cass,  Corwin,  Bell,  Berrien,  and  others 
of  the  great  men  of  that  generation  of  statesmen,  and  some 
whose  names  have  since  become  historic — Douglas,  Jefferson 
Davis ;  James  M.  Mason  and  Hannibal  Hamlin.  Mr.  Seward 
was  a  new  member  just  elected  by  the  Whigs  of  New  York. 

Mr.  Chase  felt  a  great  disinclination  to  take  part  in  the  de 
bates  ;  a  disinclination  which  arose  as  well  from  natural  modesty 
and  distrust  of  his  own  powers,  as  from  a  sense  of  inexperience 
and  deference  to  the  venerable  men  who  surrounded  him ;  and 
hence,  though  a  constant  attendant  upon  the  sessions  of  the 
Senate,  and  deeply  and  anxiously  interested  in  all  the  great  mat 
ters  of  legislation  pending  before  it,  he  participated  but  little  in 
the  debates. 

He  took  no  part  in  the  caucuses  of  the  Democratic  members — 
being,  as  was  said,  "outside  of  a  healthy  organization" — and 
declined  in  any  way  to  commit  himself  to  their  party  further 
than  to  support  their  candidates  in  Ohio  so  long  as  the  Demo 
crats  in  that  State  maintained  an  antislavery  position.  He  did 
not  believe  the  union  between  the  Independent  or  Free-Soil  and 
Old-line  Democracy  likely  to  become  effective  or  permanent  until 
the  latter,  in  national  convention,  should  declare  their  freedom 
from  pro-slavery  domination,  or  should  break  the  bonds  of  ad 
hesion  to  the  slave  interest  by  an  open  separation. 

The  year  1850  was  an  important  and  eventful  one  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  antislavery  struggle. 


THE  SLAVERY  AGITATION  OF  1850.  107 

It  lias  been  observed  in  a  former  chapter  that  the  war  with 
Mexico  and  the  consequent  acquisition  of  vast  territories  from 
that  country,  had  given  a  new  and  widely-extended  impulse  to 
the  agitation  of  the  slavery  question.  The  South  had  expected 
to  profit  from  foreign  acquisition  by  adding  new  States  to  the 
slaveholding  portion  of  the  United  States ;  but  that  expectation 
was  not  realized.  "  Surprise  and  disappointment  have  resulted 
of  course,"  said  Mr.  Webster.  "  In  other  words,  it  is  obvious 
that  the  question  which  has  so  long  harassed  the  country,  and 
at  times  very  seriously  alarmed  the  minds  of  wise  and  good  men, 
has  come  upon  us  for  a  fresh  discussion — the  question  of  slavery 
in  these  United  States ; "  slavery  being  one  of  those  questions 
which  are  ever  fresh  though  discussed  for  ages,  arid  are  never 
settled  though  settled  regularly  in  every  decade. 

The  treaty  of  peace  with  Mexico  had  been  made  in  February, 

1848,  but  irreconcilable  differences  of  opinion  in  Congress  had 
prevented  the  establishment  of  territorial  governments  in  the 
newly-acquired  domain.     The  people  of  California,  unwilling  to 
await  Federal  action  and  sorely  needing  a  fixed  government, 
chose  delegates  to  a  Territorial  Convention.     This  was  in  June, 

1849.  The  convention  met  at  Monterey,  and  formed  a  State 
constitution.     This  constitution  contained  an  express  prohibition 
of  slavery.     Of  the  members  of  the  convention,  some  sixteen 
were  natives  and  had  been  residents  of  the  slaveholding  States ; 
twenty-two  were  from  the  non-slaveholding  States,  and  the  re 
maining  ten  members  were  either  native  Californians  or  old  set 
tlers  in  that  country.     The  prohibition  of  slavery  was  made  by 
the  unanimous  voice  of  the  whole  body. 

But  disappointment  touching  the  newly-acquired  domain  was 
not  the  only  cause  of  irritation  to  the  South.  Antislavery  had 
grown  to  be  dangerously  aggressive.  Petitions  were  presented 
in  Congress  from  all  parts  of  the  North,  praying  not  only  for 
the  positive  exclusion  of  slavery  from  the  new  Territories,  but 
for  its  abolition  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  for  its  abolition  in 
all  places  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  General  Government, 
for  the  interdiction  of  the  slave-trade  upon  the  high-seas  and 
between  the  States,  for  the  repeal  of  the  fugitive  slave  law.  The 
Legislature  of  New  York  solemnly  resolved  that  to  admit  slavery 
into  New  Mexico  would  be  revolting  to  the  spirit  of  the  age. 


108  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Vermont  declared  slavery  to  be  a  crime  /  *  and  several  Northern 
States  instructed  their  Senators  to  vote  for  slavery  restriction. 
These  things  excited  a  real  fear  and  alarm  in  the  South,  and 
strongly  indicated  to  the  people  of  that  section  not  only  the  loss 
of  their  political  equality  in  the  national  councils,  but  the  ultimate 
destruction  of  their  slave-property. 

Some  scheme  of  "  adjustment "  was  demanded,  therefore,  by 
the  South.  The  admission  of  California  was  strenuously  resisted, 
unless  accompanied  by  compensation  for  the  exclusion  of  slavery 
from  its  borders. 

Mr.  Clayton  the  29th  of  January,  1850,  had  introduced  into 
the  Senate  a  series  of  resolutions  covering  the  whole  ground  of 

1  Mr.  Chase's  views  on  slavery,  almost  immediately  upon  his  appearance  in  the 
Senate,  became  the  subject  of  severe  comment  by  Southern  Senators.  His  first 
remarks  at  any  length  were  upon  the  resolutions  of  the  Legislature  of  Vermont, 
presented  by  Mr.  Upham  of  that  State,  early  in  January,  1850.  These  resolutions 
denounced  slavery  as  a  crime  and  a  sore  evil  upon  the  body  politic,  and  were  very 
bitterly  and  specially  censured  by  Mr.  Mason,  of  Virginia,  and  Mr.  Butler,  of  South 
Carolina,  and  by  some  others.  These  voted  for  printing  the  resolutions  in  order,  as 
they  said,  that  the  Southern  people  might  see  the  growth  of  antislavery  sentiment 
in  the  North.  They  said  they  wanted  such  denunciations  put  upon  the  public  rec 
ords,  that  when  "that  issue  came  which  all  patriots  and  lovers  of  the  Union  should 
avoid,"  it  would  appear  what  sort  of  vituperation  had  been  heaped  upon  the  South, 
not  by  fanatics  only,  but  by  sovereign  States.  To  this  Mr.  Chase  replied ;  agreeing 
with  Mr.  Butler  that  the  people  of  the  South  should  be  distinctly  informed  as  to 
Northern  sentiment.  It  was  his  opinion,  however,  that  the  way  to  an  amicable  solu 
tion  of  the  slavery  question  did  not  lie  through  crimination  and  recrimination,  but 
in  a  clear  and  candid  understanding  of  the  positions  on  both  sides.  But  he  thought 
it  due  to  the  people  of  Ohio  to  say  that  no  menace  of  disunion,  no  resolves  tending 
toward  disunion,  nor  intimations  of  the  probability  of  disunion  in  any  form,  should 
move  him  from  the  path  judgment  and  conscience  told  him  he  ought  to  pursue.  He 
added  that  he  wished  to  observe  an  entire  respect  for  the  rights  of  all  the  people 
and  of  all  the  States  in  the  Union.  To  this  Mr.  Butler  answered  that  while  the  Ohio 
Senator  admonished  the  cultivation  of  harmony,  and  tendered  homilies  on  the  value 
of  the  Union,  he  had  avowed  doctrines  which  would  seem  to  aim  at  the  disfranchise- 
ment  of  the  Southern  section  of  the  country.  "  I  cannot  allow  him  to  preach  mod 
eration,"  said  Mr.  Butler,  "  when  I  know  he  has,  with  others,  ultimate  designs — de 
signs  which  I  will  not  allow  him  to  disguise  under  forms  and  professions  of  modera 
tion."  And  these  "  ultimate  designs  "  Mr.  Butler  found  shadowed  at  length  in  Mr. 
Chase's  letter  to  Breslin,  which  he  caused  to  be  read  in  open  Senate  as  the  proof! 

Mr.  Chase  uniformly  voted  for  the  reception  of  all  petitions  presented  in  the  Sen 
ate  ;  among  others  for  one  praying  for  a  dissolution  of  the  Union — saying  in  respect 
to  it,  however,  that  of  course  Congress  had  no  constitutional  power  to  grant  such  a 
prayer ;  but  that  to  refuse  to  receive  the  petition  would  be  an  infringement — an 
invasion — of  the  constitutional  right  of  the  people  to  present  their  grievances. 


COMPROMISE  MEASURES  OF   1850.  109 

controversy  between  the  sections,  and  proposing  measures  for 
their  settlement.  Pending  the  discussion  of  these — on  the  13th 
of  February — the  President  communicated  to  both  Houses  au 
thenticated  copies  of  the  constitution  of  the  proposed  new  State 
of  California. 

Mr.  Chase  was  earnestly  opposed  to  any  scheme  of  compro 
mise,  and  following  the  lead  of  Mr.  Benton  had  sought  to  keep 
the  question  of  the  admission  of  California  free  from  complica 
tion  with  other  questions  properly  affecting  slavery.  He  was 
opposed  of  course  to  the  formation  of  a  compromise  committee. 
He  could  see  no  good  result  to  come  from  it ;  it  would  not  in 
spire  confidence  nor  command  respect.  "  I  do  not  believe,"  he 
said,  "  that  it  will  be  esteemed  in  future  times  a  creditable  dis 
tinction  to  have  been,  in  the  year  of  grace  1850,  a  member  of 
any  committee  by  whose  intervention  or  by  whose  non-interven 
tion  free  territory  was  subjected  to  the  blight  of  slavery." 

But  the  predominating  temper  of  the  Senate  bore  down  all 
opposition,  and  a  committee  was  ordered ;  thirteen  in  number, 
all  "conservatives"  on  the  subject  of  slavery;  six  from  the 
North  and  six  from  the  'South,  with  Mr.  Clay  as  chairman.  The 
committee  was  formed  on  the  19th  of  April  and  reported  the 
result  of  its  deliberations  on  the  8th  of  May,  in  a  paper  carefully 
and  elaborately  drawn,  and  covering  all  the  points  of  controversy 
in  detail.  It  submitted  "views  and  recommendations"  which 
embodied  in  substance  the  material  parts  of  the  resolutions  of 
Mr.  Clay  offered  on  the  29th  of  January.  The  recommenda 
tions  of  the  committee  were :  1.  That  when  additional  States — 
one  or  more — formed  out  of  Texas,  should  apply  for  admission 
into  the  Union,  good  faith  would  require  that  they  should  be 
admitted ;  2.  That  California  should  forthwith  be  admitted  with 
the  boundaries  she  had  proposed ;  3.  That  territorial  govern 
ments  should  be  established  in  Utah  and  New  Mexico,  without 
the  Wilmot  proviso,  embracing  all  the  territory  not  included  in 
the  boundaries  of  California ;  4.  The  combination  of  these  two 
last-mentioned  measures  in  one  bill ;  5.  The  establishment  of 
the  western  and  northern  boundary  of  Texas,  and  the  exclusion 
from  her  jurisdiction  of  all  New  Mexico,  with  the  grant  to  Texas 
of  a  pecuniary  equivalent,  and  the  section  for  that  purpose  to  be 
incorporated  in  the  bill  admitting  California  and  establishing 


HO  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

territorial  governments  for  Utah  and  New  Mexico  ;  6.  More 
effectual  enactments  of  law  to  secure  the  prompt  delivery  of 
persons  bound  to  service  or  labor  in  one  State,  under  the  laws 
thereof,  who  escape  into  another  State;  7.  Abstaining  from 
abolishing  slavery,  but  under  a  heavy  penalty  prohibiting  the 
slave-trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 

Upon  the  principal  matters  involved  in  this  report,  Mr. 
Chase  had  already,  on  the  26th  and  27th  of  March,  in  a  speech 
occupying  a  portion  of  each  of  those  two  days,  stated  his  views 
at  length,  and  with  great  care.  He  had  rapidly  sketched  the 
rise  of  the  American  Government  and  the  American  Union,  so 
far  as  their  relations  to  American  slavery  were  involved,  from 
their  origin  in  the  association  of  1774  to  the  establishment  of 
the  Constitution  of  1787.  "  One  spirit  pervaded,"  he  said,  "  and 
one  principle  controlled  all  the  action  of  the  framers  of  the 
republic — a  spirit  of  profound  reverence  for  the  rights  of  man 
as  man — the  principle  of  the  perfect  equality  of  men  before  the 
law. 

"And  what  has  been  the  result,"  he  asked,  "of  the  sub 
version  of  the  original  policy  of  slavery  restriction  and  discour 
agement,  and  the  substitution — in  disregard  of  the  letter  and 
spirit  of  the  Constitution — of  the  opposite  policy  ?  Why,  in 
stead  of  six  slave  States — for  I  do  not  reckon  among  the  slave 
States  New  York  or  New  Jersey,  in  both  of  which  emancipation 
was  expected  in  1787,  and  soon  after  actually  took  place — instead 
of  six  slave  States  we  have  fifteen ;  instead  of  a  majority  of 
free  States,  we  have  an  equal  number  of  slave  and  free ;  instead 
of  seven  hundred  thousand  slaves  we  have  three  millions ;  in 
stead  of  a  property  estimate  of  them  at  ten  millions  of  dollars, 
we  hear  them  rated  at  a  thousand  millions  and  even  fifteen 
hundred  millions ;  instead  of  slavery  being  regarded  as  a  curse, 
a  reproach,  a  blight,  an  evil,  a  wrong,  a  sin,  we  are  now  told  that 
it  is  the  most  stable  foundation  of  our  institutions ;  the  happiest 
relation  that  labor  can  sustain  to  capital ;  a  blessing  to  both 
races,  black  and  white,  and  to  the  master  and  the  slave. 

"  This  is  a  great  and  a  sad  change.  If  it  goes  on,  the  spirit 
of  liberty  must  at  length  be  extinguished,  and  a  despotism  will 
be  formed  under  the  forms  of  free  institutions."  l 

1  He  here  paid  a  beautiful  tribute  to  the  memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson :    "  I  do 


COMPROMISE  MEASURES  OF   1850.  HI 

He  denied  the  doctrine  that  an  equilibrium  between  the 
slaveholding  and  the  non-slaveholding  sections  of  the  country, 
at  any  time  had  been  or  at  any  time  should  be  an  approved 
feature  of  our  political  system.  The  doctrine  was  a  recent  one ; 
never  thought  of  till  we  began  to  create  slave  States  acquired 
from  foreign  powers.  It  was  alien  to  the  original  policy  of 
the  Government,  and  inconsistent  with  the  interests  and  the 
duty  of  the  country.  Nor  was  it  true,  either,  that  slavery  and 
freedom  were  entitled  to  equal  regard  in  the  administration  of 
the  Government.  "  The  argument  is,  that  the  States  are  equal ; 
that  each  State  has  an  equal  right  with  every  other  State  to  de 
termine  for  itself  what  shall  be  the  character  of  its  domestic  in 
stitutions,  and  therefore  that  every  right  acquired  under  the  laws 

not  know,"  he  said,  "  that  any  monument  has  been  erected  over  the  grave  of 
Jefferson." 

Mr.  Mason,  of  Virginia,  said  that  there  had  been — a  granite  obelisk. 

"  I  am  glad  to  hear  it,"  said  Mr.  Chase ;  "  no  monumental  marble  bears  a  nobler 
name." 

Mr.  Seward  said :  "  The  inscription  is,  '•Here  was  buried  Thomas  Jefferson,  Author 
of  the  Declaration  of  American  Independence,  of  the  Statute  of  Virginia  for  Religious 
Freedom,  and  Father  of  the  University  of  Virginia?  " 

"  It  is  an  appropriate  inscription,"  said  Mr.  Chase,  "  and  worthily  commemorates 
distinguished  services.  But  if  a  stranger  from  some  foreign  land  should  ask  me  for 
the  monument  of  Jefferson,  I  could  not  take  him  to  Virginia  and  bid  him  look  on  a 
granite  obelisk,  however  admirable  in  its  proportions  or  its  inscriptions.  I  would 
ask  him  to  go  with  me  beyond  the  Alleghanies,  into  the  midst  of  the  broad  North 
west,  and  would  say  to  him — 

'  Si  monumentum  quaeris,  circumspice ! ' 

'  Behold,  sir,  on  every  side  his  monument !  These  thronged  cities,  these  flourishing 
villages,  these  cultivated  fields  ;  these  million  happy  homes  of  prosperous  freemen ; 
these  churches,  these  schools,  these  asylums  for  the  unfortunate  and  the  helpless  ; 
these  institutions  of  education,  religion  and  humanity ; — these  great  States — great 
in  their  present  resources,  but  greater  far  in  the  mighty  energies  by  which  the  re 
sources  of  the  future  are  to  be  developed :  these,  these  are  the  monuments  of 
Jefferson.  His  memorial  is  over  all  our  Western  land  : 

4  Our  veriest  rill,  our  mightiest  river, 
Roll  migling  with  his  fame  forever.' 

"  But  what  monument,"  he  asked,  "  should  be  erected  to  those  whose  mis 
applied  talents,  energy  and  perseverance,  have  procured,  or  whose  compromising 
timidity  has  permitted,  the  reversal  of  the  policy  of  Jefferson  ?  What  inscription 
should  commemorate  the  acts  of  those  who  have  surrendered  vast  territories  to 
slavery ;  who  have  disappointed  the  expectations  of  the  fathers  of  the  republic ; 
who  have  prepared  for  our  country  the  dangers  and  difficulties  which  are  now  around 
and  upon  us  ?  It  is  not  for  me  to  say  what  that  inscription  should  be." 


t 

LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

of  any  State  must  be  protected  and  enforced  in  the  national 
Territories  as  in  the  States  whose  laws  conferred  it.  But  the 
argument  does  not  warrant  the  conclusion.  It  is  true  that  the 
States  are  entirely  and  absolutely  equal ;  it  is  true  that  each 
State,  except  where  restrained  by  constitutional  provisions,  may 
form  its  domestic  institutions  according  to  its  own  pleasure, — 
but  it  is  not  true  that  every  right  derived  from  State  law  can 
be  carried  beyond  the  State  into  the  Territories  or  elsewhere ; 
— it  is  not  true,  for  example,  that  if  a  State  chooses  to  authorize 
slaveholding  within  its  limits,  Congress  is  therefore  bound  to 
authorize  slaveholding  in  the  Territories.  It  is  no  more  true 
than  that  a  bank,  chartered  by  the  laws  of  a  particular  State, 
would  have  a  right  under  that  law  to  establish  branches  in  the 
Territories,  although  the  national  Government  m,ight  be  con 
stitutionally  incompetent  to  legalize  banking.  Slavery  depends 
entirely  for  its  existence  and  continuance  on  the  local  law.  Be 
yond  the  sphere  of  the  operation  of  such  law,  no  man  can  be 
compeEed  to  submit  to  the  condition  of  a  slave,  except  by  mere 
unauthorized  force." 

It  was  in  the  light  of  these  general  principles  that  he  pro 
ceeded  to  consider  the  matters  involved  in  the  resolutions  of 
Mr.  Clay  of  the  29th  of  January.  He  protested  against  coup 
ling  the  question  of  the  admission  of  California  with  other 
questions,  and  declared  his  opposition  to  the  appointment  of  the 
committee  to  submit  a  plan  of  compromise.  He  objected  to  the 
postponement  of  the  admission  of  the  new  State,  that  territorial 
bills  for  the  organization  of  Utah  and  New  Mexico  might  have 
precedence.  The  country  would  regard  such  postponement  as  a 
concession  to  the  demand  for  the  extension  of  slavery  into  free 
Territories.  The  design  was  palpable  enough.  No  such  con 
cession  w^ould  ever  receive  the  sanction  of  his  vote.  With  re 
spect  to  the  admission  of  new  States  to  be  formed  out  of  Texas, 
and  the  adjustment  of  the  Texan  boundary  and  the  assumption 
by  the  United  States  of  the  Texan  debt,  he  thought  those  ques 
tions  had  been  brought  prematurely  into  the  discussion;  that 
whatever  might  be  the  true  construction  of  the  resolutions  of 
annexation  (of  Texas),  or  their  obligatory  force  under  the  con 
stitution,  there  wras  no  necessity  to  be  immediately  active  in 
carving  a  new  State  out  of  Texas ;  and  that  there  was  no  great 


COMPROMISE  MEASURES  OF  1850.  113 

reason  for  apprehension  that  Texas  would  soon  propose  to 
divide  herself  if  Congress  did  not  meddle  with  the  matter.  As 
for  the  Texan  debt,  he  preferred  to  leave  that  where  the  resolu 
tions  of  annexation  left  it— -with  Texas. 

Three  other  propositions  Mr.  Chase  considered  together. 
These  were  :  1.  That  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  ought 
not  to  be  abolished,  except  with  the  consent  of  the  people  of  the 
District  and  of  Maryland ;  2.  That  the  slave-trade  hi  the  Dis 
trict  ought  to  be  abolished ;  3.  That  Congress  had  no  power  to 
prohibit  the  slave-trade  among  the  States. 

In  the  first  proposition  he  could  not  concur.  "  I  have  already 
said  that  in  my  judgment  the  Constitution  confers  on  Congress 
no  power  to  enforce  the  absolute  subjection  of  one  man  to  the 
disposal  of  another  man  as  property.  It  is  my  opinion  that  all 
legislation  adopted  or  enacted  by  Congress  for  enforcing  that 
condition  ought  to  be  repealed  whether  in  this  District  or  else 
where.  I  listened  with  great  pleasure  to  the  emphatic  declara 
tion  of  the  Senator  from  Kentucky,  in  respect  to  the  extension 
of  slavery  by  Congress,  that  he  would  give  no  vote  to  propagate 
wrongs !  What  wrongs  ?  Why,  sir,  those  wrongs,  multiplied 
and  complicated,  which  are  summed  up  in  one  word — SLAVERY. 
And  where  is  the  warrant  for  this  comprehensive  condemnation 
of  slavery  ?  It  is  found  in  that  LAW — to  assert  the  supremacy 
of  which  here  seems  to  some  so  censurable — that  law  of  sublimer 
origin  and  more  awful  sanction  than  any  human  code,  written  in 
ineffaceable  characters  upon  every  heart  of.  man,  which  con 
demns  all  injustice  and  all  oppression  as  a  violation  of  that  in 
junction  which  commands  us  to  do  unto  others  as  we  would  that 
others  should  do  unto  us. 

"If  the  Senator  from  Kentucky  was  right — and  who  did 
not  feel  that  he  was  right  ? — in  saying  that  he  would  give 
no  vote  to  propagate  wrongs^  am  I  not  right  in  saying  that  I 
will  give  no  vote  to  perpetuate  wrongs  ? — I  will  give  no  vote 
for  the  continuance  of  slavery  in  this  District.  .  .  .  The  power 
of  exclusive  legislation  over  the  District  is  confided  to  us.  We 
are  bound  to  use  it  so  as  to  establish  justice  and  secure  the  bless 
ings  of  liberty  to  all  within  its  reach." 

He  expressed  it  as  his  belief  that  Congress  might  constitu 
tionally  prohibit  the  slave-trade  among  the  States.  "  And  why 
8 


114  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

should  not  Congress  prohibit  this  traffic  ?  We  hear  much  of  the 
cruelty  of  the  African  slave-trade.  Our  laws  denounce  against 
those  engaged  in  it  the  punishment  of  death.  Is  it  less  cruel, 
less  deserving  of  punishment,  to  tear  fathers,  mothers,  children, 
from  their  homes  and  each  other,  in  Maryland  and  Virginia, 
and  transport  them  to  the  markets  of  Louisiana  and  Mississippi  ? 
If  there  be  a  difference  in  cruelty  and  wrong,  is  it  not  in  favor 
of  the  African  and  against  the  American  slave-trade  ?  Why, 
then,  should  we  be  guilty  of  the  inconsistency  of  abolishing  that 
by  the  sternest  prohibition,  and  continuing  this  under  the  sanc 
tion  of  national  law  ? " 

Touching  the  proposition  to  make  more  effectual  provision 
for  the  extradition  of  fugitive  slaves,  he  inquired  where  in  the 
Constitution  power  was  conferred  upon  Congress  to  legislate 
on  the  subject  ?  "  I  know,"  he  said,  "  to  what  clause  I  shall  be 
referred.  I  know  I  shall  be  told  that  £  no  person  held  to  service 
or  labor  in  one  State,  under  the  laws  thereof,  shall,  in  conse 
quence  of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be  discharged  from 
such  service  or  labor,  but  shall  be  delivered  up  on  claim  of  the 
party  to  whom  said  service  or  labor  may  be  due.'  But  this 
clause  contains  no  grant  of  legislative  power  to  Congress.  .  .  . 
The  clause  is  one  of  compact ;  and  if  this  opinion  be  correct,  the 
power  of  legislation  and  the  duty  of  legislation  must  be  with 
the  States,  and  not  with  Congress." 

When  Mr.  Butler  asked,  "  if  some  of  the  States  refused  to 
pass  laws  to  comply  with  the  obligation  of  the  compact,  where 
the  remedy  was  ? "  Mr.  Chase  answered  distinctly  and  without 
equivocation,  that  he  knew  of  no  remedy  where  a  State  re 
fused  to  perform  the  stipulation.  "  The  obligation  of  the 
compact,  and  the  extent  of  the  compact  are,  as  in  every 
other  case  of  treaty  stipulation,  matters  which  address  them 
selves  exclusively  to  the  good  faith  and  sound  judgment  of 
the  parties  to  it.  ...  I  repeat  that  the  clause  in  relation 
to  fugitives  from  labor  is  a  clause  of  compact.  For  many 
years  after  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  it  was  so  regarded. 
It  was  not  much  discussed,  and  the  limits  of  the  respective 
powers  of  the  State  and  Federal  Governments  under  it  were 
not  very  accurately  settled.  But  nearly  all  the  States  legis 
lated  under  it,  and  provided  such  methods  for  the  extradition  of 


COMPROMISE  MEASURES  OF  1850.  115 

fugitives  as  they  deemed  consistent  with  the  security  of  the 
personal  rights  of  their  own  citizens.  .  .  . 

"  But  if  it  be  granted  that  Congress  has  the  power  to  legis 
late,  are  we  bound  to  exercise  it?  "We  have  power,  without 
question,  to  enact  a  bankrupt  law,  but  no  one  proposes  such  a 
law ;  and  if  proposed,  no  one  would  feel  bound  to  vote  for  it 
simply  because  we  have  power  to  enact  it.  We  have  power  to 
declare  war ;  but  to  declare  war  without  just  cause,  would  be 
not  a  duty  but  a  crime.  The  power  to  provide  by  law  for  the 
extradition  of  fugitives  is  not  conferred  by  any  express  grant. 
We  have  it,  if  we  have  it  at  all,  as  an  implied  power,  and  the 
implication  which  gives  it  to  us  is,  to  say  the  least,  remote  and 
doubtful.  We  are  not  bound  to  exercise  it.  We  are  bound, 
indeed,  not  to  exercise  it,  unless  with  great  caution  and  with 
careful  regard,  not  merely  to  the  alleged  right  sought  to  be 
secured,  but  to  every  other  right  which  may  be  affected  by  it. 
Were  the  power  as  clear  as  the  power  co  coin  money  or  regulate 
commerce,  still  it  should  not  be  exercised  to  the  prejudice  of  any 
right  which  the  Constitution  guarantees.  We  are  not  prepared, 
I  hope,  and  I  trust  we  never  shall  be  prepared,  to  give  the  sanc 
tion  of  the  American  Senate  to  the  bill  and  the  amendments 
now  upon  our  table — a  bill  which  authorizes  and  requires  the 
appointment  of  two  hundred  and  sixty-one  commissioners,  and 
an  indefinite  number  of  other  officers,  to  catch  runaway  slaves 
in  the  State  of  Ohio;  which  punishes  humanity  as  a  crime; 
which  authorizes  seizure  without  process,  trial  without  a  jury, 
and  consignment  to  slavery  beyond  the  limits  of  the  State  with 
out  opportunity  of  defense  and  upon  ex-parte  testimony.  Cer 
tainly  no  such  bill  can  receive  my  vote." 

He  argued  at  length  the  question  of  slavery  in  the  Territo 
ries,  contending  that  the  possibility  of  its  entrance  ought  to  be 
excluded  by  a  positive  prohibition.  He  paid  some  particular 
attention  to  the  doctrine  of  Mr.  Webster  that  physical  law  had 
excluded  it  from  Utah  and  New  Mexico.  "  Is  it  true,"  he  asked, 
"  that  any  law  of  physical  geography  will  protect  the  new  Terri 
tories  from  the  curse  of  slavery  ?  Peonism  was  there  under  the 
Mexican  law,  and  if  peonism  were  not  there  to  wrarn  us  what 
may  be  expected  if  slavery  be  not  prohibited,  could  we,  as  rational 
legislators,  find  an  excuse  in  the  physical  circumstances  of  the 


HQ  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

country  for  abandoning  the  [Wilnaot]  proviso  ?  It  is  said  to  be 
1  Asiatic  in  formation  and  scenery.'  Are  there  no  slaves  in  Asia  ? 
But  the  soil  is  cultivated  by  <  irrigation.'  Well,  will  this  fact,  if 
it  be  a  fact,  that  the  sun  shines  from  a  cloudless  sky,  and  waters 
to  refresh  the  earth  must  be  drawn  from  the  streams  which 
snow-capped  hills  supply :  will  this  exclude  slavery  ?  But  the 
lands  are  poor.  Sir,  who  knows  that  3  Much  of  the  vast  region 
over  which  we  are  to  extend  territorial  government  is  wholly 
unexplored.  In  other  parts  there  is,  as  everywhere  else,  good 
land  and  poor  land.  Certainly  there  are  mines,  and  in  no  em 
ployment  has  slave-labor  been  more  commonly  or  more  profitably 
used.  Let  us  take  care  that  we  do  not  deceive  ourselves,  or  mis 
lead  others.  Neither  soil,  nor  climate,  nor  physical  formation, 
nor  degrees  of  latitude,  will  exclude  slavery  from  any  country. 
Can  any  gentleman  name  a  degree  of  latitude  beyond  which 
slavery  has  not  gone,  or  any  description  of  country  to  which  it 
has  not,  at  some  time,  found  access  ? " 

He  concluded  thus :  "  Honesty  is  the  best  policy ;  justice  the 
highest  expediency ;  and  principle  the  only  proper  basis  of  union 
in  a  political  organization.  Holding  fast  as  I  do  to  democratic 
principles ;  believing  firmly  that  all  men  are  created  equal,  and 
are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  inalienable  rights  to  life  and 
liberty,  I  desire  to  see  those  principles  carried  out  boldly,  ear 
nestly,  resolutely,  in  the  practical  administration  of  affairs.  I 
wish  to  see  the  powers  of  this  Government  exercised  for  the 
great  objects  which  the  Constitution  indicates — for  the  perfec 
tion  of  our  Union;  for  the  establishment  of  justice;  for  the 
common  defense ;  for  the  security  of  liberty. 

.  .  .  .  « ^\re  of  -t^  "\Vest  are  in  the  habit  of  looking  upon 
the  Union  as  we  look  upon  the  arch  of  heaven,  without  a  thought 
that  it  can  ever  decay  or  fall.  "With  equal  reverence  we  regard 
the  great  Ordinance  of  Freedom,  under  whose  benign  influence, 
within  little  more  than  half  a  century,  a  wilderness  has  been 
converted  into  an  empire.  OHIO,  the  eldest  born  of  the  Consti 
tution  and  the  Ordinance,  cleaves  and  will  cleave  faithfully  to 
both.  And  now  that  the  time  has  come  when  vast  accessions 
of  free  territory  demand  the  application  of  those  principles  of 
the  Ordinance,  to  which  she  is  indebted  for  her  prosperity  and 
power,  to  guard  them  against  the  blighting  influence  of  slavery, 


COMPROMISE  MEASURES  OF   1850.  117 

she  will  insist  that  the  same  protection  shall  be  extended  to  the 
Territories  which  was  extended  to  her. 

"  Nor  are  these  the  sentiments  of  Ohio  alone.  They  are  the 
sentiments  of  the  people  throughout  the  free  States.  Here  and 
there  the  arts  or  the  fears  of  politicians  or  capitalists  may  sup 
press  their  utterance — but  they  live  and  will  live  in  the  hearts 
of  the  masses.  There  is  no  great  and  real  change  in  those 
opinions  and  convictions  which  placed  a  majority  pledged  to 
free  soil  in  the  other  wing  of  the  Capitol.  It  may  be,  however, 
that  you  will  succeed  here  in  sacrificing  the  claims  of  freedom 
by  some  settlement  carried  through  the  forms  of  legislation. 
But  the  people  will  unsettle  your  settlement.  It  may  be  that 
you  will  determine  that  the  Territories  shall  not  be  secured  by 
law  against  the  ingress  of  slavery.  The  people  will  reverse  your 
determination.  It  may  be  that  you  will  succeed  in  burying  the 
Ordinance  of  Freedom.  But  the  people  will  write  upon  its 
tomb,  JResurgam — i  I  shall  rise  again ' — and  the  same  history 
which  records  its  resurrection  may  also  inform  posterity  that 
they  who  fancied  they  had  killed  the  proviso,  had  only  com 
mitted  political  suicide." 


CHAPTEE   XIY. 

BILLS  SUBMITTED  BY  THE  SENATE  COMMITTEE  OF  THIRTEEN NON- 
INTERVENTION  WITH  SLAVERY  IN  THE  TERRITORIES JEFFER 
SON  DAVIS5  S  PROPOSITION COUNTER  -  PROPOSITION  BY  MR. 

CHASE SPEECH  OF   MR.    CHASE   ON   THE    SUBJECT THE  TEXAS 

BOUNDARY FUGITIVE     SLAVE    ACT   OF    1850 MR.    CHASERS   OP 
POSITION     TO     IT ADOPTION     OF     THE    COMPROMISE    OF    1850 

"  A     COMPLETE     AND     FINAL     ADJUSTMENT " MR.      SUMNER5S 

ADVENT   INTO   THE    SENATE INTRODUCTION    BY    MR.     DOUGLAS 

OF     THE     BILL     ORGANIZING   A   TERRITORIAL     GOVERNMENT     IN 
NEBRASKA. 

THE  Senate  committee  of  thirteen,  along  with  their  report, 
submitted  bills  designed  to  carry  into  effect  their  several 
recommendations — alleging  at  the  same  time  that  they  "  had 
endeavored  to  present  a  comprehensive  plan  of  adjustment,  which, 
removing  all  causes  of  existing  excitement  and  agitation,  leaves 
none  to  divide  the  country  and  disturb  the  general  harmony." 

The  accompanying  bills  were  really  six  in  number — 1.  For  the 
admission  of  California  ;  2.  For  the  organization  of  a  territorial 
government  in  Utah ;  3.  For  the  organization  of  a  territorial  gov 
ernment  in  New  Mexico ;  and  4.  Establishing  the  boundaries  of 
Texas — these  four  different  measures  being  included,  however, 
in  one  bill  of  thirty-nine  sections.  A  fifth  made  further  pro 
vision  for  the  return  of  fugitive  slaves,  and  the  sixth  abolished 
the  slave-trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 

Slavery  in  Utah  and  E~ew  Mexico  was  thus  disposed  of  in 
the  bills  organizing  those  Territories :  "  The  legislative  power 
of  the  Territory  shall  extend  to  all  rightful  subjects  of  legisla- 


SLAVERY  IN  THE  TERRITORIES.  119 

tion  consistent  with  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and 
the  provisions  of  this  act ;  but  no  law  shall  be  passed  interfer 
ing  with  the  primary  disposal  of  the  soil,  nor  in  respect  to  Afri 
can  slavery."  "  It  will  be  observed,"  said  the  committee,  "  that 
the  bill  for  establishing  these  two  Territories  omits  the  Wilmot 
proviso  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  makes  no  provision 
for  the  introduction  of  slavery  into  any  part  of  them.  That 
proviso  has  been  the  fruitful  source  of  distraction  and  agitation. 
If  it  were  adopted  and  applied  to  any  Territory,  it  would  cease 
to  have  any  obligatory  force  so  soon  as  such  Territory  were 
admitted  as  a  State  into  the  Union  ....  The  true  principle 
which  ought  to  regulate  the  action  of  Congress  in  forming  ter 
ritorial  governments  for  each  newly-acquired  domain  is  to 
refrain  from  all  legislation  on  the  subject  in  the  Territory 
acquired,  so  long  as  it  retains  the  territorial  form  of  govern 
ment — leaving  it  to  people  of  such  Territory,  when  they  have 
attained  to  a  condition  which  entitles  them  to  admission  as  a 
State,  to  decide  for  themselves  the  question  of  the  allowance  or 
prohibition  of  domestic  slavery." 

Leading  Southern  Senators  were  unwilling,  however,  to 
acquiesce  in  these  views  and  recommendations  of  Mr.  Clay  and 
his  associates ;  but  sought  a  distinct  recognition  of  the  right  to 
hold  slaves  in  the  new  Territories.  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  pro 
posed  to  so  amend  the  committee's  bill  as  to  prevent  the  terri 
torial  Legislature  from  "  passing  any  law  interfering  with  rights 
of  property  growing  out  of  the  institution  of  African  slavery  as 
it  exists  in  any  of  the  States  of  this  Union."  This  was  a  bold 
and  sufficiently  plain  proposition ;  but  it  became  almost  imme 
diately  apparent  that  it  could  not  command  a  majority  of  the 
Senators.  The  powerful  voice  of  Mr.  Clay  was  promptly 
against  it.  "  I  cannot  vote,"  he  said,  "  to  convert  a  Territory 
already  free  into  a  slave  Territory." 

Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  proposed  to  modify  his  proposition,  and 
moved  as  an  amendment,  "that  nothing  contained  in  the  bill 
should  be  construed  to  prevent  the  territorial  Legislature  from 
passing  such  laws  as  may  be  necessary  for  the  protection  of 
rights  of  property  of  any  kind  which  may  have  been  or  may 
be  hereafter,  conformably  to  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the 
United  States,  held  in  or  introduced  into  such  Territory." 


120  LI^E  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

This  amendment  covered  the  doctrine  of  "non-interven 
tion,"  as  Mr.  Davis  said,  though  at  the  same  time  he  alleged 
that  by  the  adoption  of  it  the  Senate  would  recognize — by 
strong  implication  at  least — the  existence  of  slavery  in  the  Ter 
ritories  ;  that  at  any  rate  it  would  recognize  the  constitutional 
right  of  slaveholders  to  carry  their  slaves  into  the  Territories 
and  hold  them  there,  and  enjoy  the  fruits  of  their  labor  ;  rather 
a  remarkable  kind  of  non-intervention.  And  upon  this  propo 
sition,  susceptible  of  such  a  construction,  Mr.  Davis  said  he 
sought  a  distinct  expression  of  sentiment  on  the  part  of  all  the 
Senators. 

Mr.  Chase  said  he  felt  it  exceedingly  desirable  to  have  some 
proposition  to  vote  upon  which  should  have  the  same  meaning 
in  all  parts  of  the  country,  which  was  not  the  case  with  that  of 
the  Senator  from  Mississippi.  Some  Senators  agreed  with  the 
author  in  his  conclusion  touching  its  import,  and  some  denied 
it.  He  wished  to  exclude  that  conclusion,  and  offered  an 
amendment  which  he  thought  would  effect  that  purpose,  and 
upon  which  he  desired  a  vote.  His  amendment  provided,  "  that 
nothing  contained  in  the  act  should  be  construed  as  authorizing 
or  permitting  the  introduction  of  slavery  or  the  holding  of  per 
sons  as  property  in  the  said  Territory." 

Several  Senators,  in  a  breath,  declared  this  to  be  nothing 
other  than  the  Wilmot  proviso. 

"  It  is  not  the  Wilmot  proviso,"  said  Mr.  Chase.  "  The  bill 
reported  by  the  committee  contained  an  express  prohibition  of 
territorial  legislation  in  respect  to  African  slavery.  It  so  hap 
pens  that  hardly  any  two  Senators  who  have  spoken  on  the  sub 
ject  of  that  prohibition  have  agreed  as  to  its  import,  and  it  was 
for  the  purpose  of  fixing  a  construction  that  the  Senator  from 
Mississippi  offered  his  amendment,  which  provides  that  the  ter 
ritorial  Legislature  shall  neither  introduce  nor  exclude  slavery, 
but  shall  have  power  to  legislate  for  the  protection  of  property 
of  every  kind  which  may  be  introduced  or  held  conformably  to 
the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States. 

"  What  does  this  language  mean  ?  Shall  we  advance  a  sin 
gle  step  toward  a  clear  and  unambiguous  declaration  of  legisla 
tive  intention  if  we  adopt  this  amendment  ?  Undoubtedly  the 
intent  would  be  clear  enough  if  we  all  agreed  that  the  terms 


COMPROMISE  MEASURES  OF  1850.  121 

property  of  every  kind  held  within  or  brought  into  the  Terri 
tories  in  conformity  with  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  tJie 
United  States,  included  property  in  slaves.  But  we  are  not  so 
agreed,"  and  he  had  offered  an  amendment  which  met  and  neg 
atived  the  proposition  of  Mr.  Davis,  "  that  the  right  to  carry 
slaves  into  the  Territory,  and  hold  and  dispose  of  them  there,  is 
covered  and  secured  either  by  the  Senator's  amendment  or  by 
the  original  clause  as  reported  by  the  committee.  Those  Sena 
tors  who  think  that  under  the  original  provision  of  the  bill  or 
under  the  amendment,  slaves  may  be  introduced  into  the  Terri 
tory  or  persons  held  there  as  property — who  see  nothing  unde 
sirable  in  that  result — will  of  course  vote  against  my  restrictive 
proposition.  But  I  do  not  see  how  any  Senator  can  refuse  to 
vote  for  it,  who  holds  the  opinion — frequently  expressed  here 
— that  neither  the  original  clause  nor  the  amendment  of  the 
Senator  from  Mississippi,  when  rightly  construed,  will  warrant 
slavery  in  the  Territories,  or  who  is  unwilling  to  see  slavery 
established  there  as  the  effect  and  result  of  legislation  here. 
Such  a  vote  will  only  give  expression  and  effect  to  the  professed 
wish  and  purpose  of  such  a  Senator.  It  will  not  be  a  vote  for 
the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Territories.  It  will  be  a  vote 
that  slavery  shall  not  be  established  there  by  the  bill  or  the 
amendment,  under  a  construction  which  many  Senators  insist 
upon  as  the  true  one,  and  which — there  is  some  reason  to  feel 
— may  be  held  to  be  the  true  one  by  the  judiciary  as  now  con 
stituted." 

The  debate  which  followed  upon  this  proposed  amendment 
of  Mr.  Chase  to  the  amendment  of  Mr.  Davis — participated  in 
by  Clay,  Webster,  Cass,  Davis,  Douglas,  and  others — was  impor 
tant,  as  fixing  the  sense  in  which  the  committee's  clause  on 
slavery,  in  the  territorial  bills,  was  interpreted  by  Senators. 
Mr.  Douglas  expressed  the  prevailing  sentiment.  Said  that  Sen 
ator  :  "  He  "  (alluding  to  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis)  "  desires  an  amend 
ment  which  he  thinks  will  recognize  the  institution  of  slavery 
in  the  new  Territories  as  it  is  now  existing  in  this  country.  I  do 
not  believe  that  it  exists  there  now  by  law.  I  believe  it  is  pro 
hibited  by  law  there  at  this  time,  and  the  effect  if  not  the  object 
of  his  amendment  would  be  to  introduce  slavery  by  law  into  a 
country  from  which  I  think  a  large  majority  of  this  Senate  are 


LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

of  opinion  it  is  now  excluded,  and  he  calls  upon  us  to  introduce 
it  there.  The  Senator  from  Kentucky,  who  brought  forward 
this  compromise,  tells  us  that '  he  never  can  give  a  vote  by  which 
he  will  introduce  slavery  where  it  does  not  exist.'  Other  Sena 
tors  have  declared  the  same  thing,  to  an  extent  which  authorizes 
us  to  assume  that  a  majority  of  this  Senate  will  never  extend 
slavery  by  law  into  territory  now  free." 

The  question  on  the  adoption  of  the  amendment  of  Mr. 
Chase  showed  twenty-five  Senators  in  its  favor  and  thirty  against 
it — among  the  latter  Mr.  Douglas  and  Mr.  Webster.  The  amend 
ment  of  Mr.  Davis  met  a  like  fate — twenty-five  Senators  voting 
aye  and  thirty  voting  no. 

Touching  the  Texas  boundary  question,  Mr.  Chase  declared 
that  he  had  no  disposition  to  take  from  Texas  a  foot  nor  an  inch 
which  rightfully  belonged  to  her ;  "  but  I  have  regarded  from 
the  beginning,"  he  said,  "  this  question  of  boundary  as  one  to  be 
adjusted — since  the  United  States  now  stands  in  the  place  of 
Mexico — by  some  fair  and  competent  tribunal.  I  have  been 
willing  to  leave  it  to  commissioners,  and  have  voted  for  proposi 
tions  intended  to  effect  that  object.  I  have  been  willing  to  com 
mit  its  decision  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  and 
it  seemed  to  me  that — organized  as  we  all  know  that  court  to 
be — nothing  more  than  this  could  be  desired  by  the  advocates 
of  the  Texas  claim.  Certainly  the  absence  of  all  bias  against 
the  claim  on  the  part  of  that  tribunal  will  not  be  doubted.  If 
neither  of  these  modes  of  terminating  the  dispute  should  prove 
acceptable  to  Texas,  I  would — for  one — consent  cheerfully  to 
refer  the  whole  matter  to  the  arbitrament  of  intelligent  and  dis 
interested  individuals,  whether  Americans  or  foreigners.  But 
in  either  case  the  question  submitted  should  be  the  question  of 
boundary,  to  be  determined  as  a  matter  of  law  and  fact,  upon 
the  acknowledged  principles  applicable  to  such  cases."  ' 

1  The  claim  on  behalf  of  Texas  was,  that  all  the  territory  lying  north  and  east 
of  the  Rio  Grande,  from  its  mouth  to  its  source,  belonged  to  her  by  a  "  good  legal 
title,  acquired  previous  to  her  admission  into  the  Union,  and  rested  not  only  upon 
the  right  of  revolution,  exercised  at  the  time  of  the  revolt  against  Mexico,  but  upon 
treaty  stipulations  also,  and  was  therefore  a  part  of  the  original  territory." 

The  territory  thus  claimed  to  belong  to  Texas  was  of  an  average  width  of  one 
hundred  miles  throughout  its  whole  area,  and  was  nearly  two  thousand  miles  long, 
and  contained  within  its  bosom  some  twenty  populous  towns  and  villages,  whose 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  ACT.  123 

Mr.  Chase's  opposition  to  the  fugitive  slave  bill  of  Mr.  Ma 
son  (for  the  bill  reported  by  the  committee  of  thirteen  received 
little  or  no  consideration)  was  very  earnest. 

The  bill  of  Mr.  Mason  contained  some  extraordinary  features, 
as  a  brief  recapitulation  will  show  : 

It  provided  for  the  appointment  of  not  more  than  three 
commissioners  in  each  county  in  the  United  States  and  in  the 
organized  Territories,1  who  were  authorized  to  administer  oaths, 
examine  witnesses,  and  hear  and  determine  all  cases  arising 
under  the  provisions  of  the  act  itself,  relating  to  the  arrest  and 
return  of  fugitive  slaves,  concurrent  with  the  jurisdiction  con 
ferred  by  the  act  upon  the  judges  of  the  Circuit  and  District 
Courts  of  the  United  States,  severally  and  collectively,  in  term- 
time  and  vacation ;  and  to  grant  certificates  under  authority  of 
which  fugitive  slaves  might  be  removed  out  of  the  State  by 
their  claimants.  The  marshals  and  deputy-marshals  of  United 
States  courts  were  put  at  the  command  of  these  commissioners, 
and  in  addition  they  were  authorized  to  appoint  any  number  of 
"  suitable  persons  "  to  execute  the  warrants  and  processes  issued 
by  them  in  pursuance  of  the  act ;  and  authority  was  conferred 
upon  the  commissioners  and  the  "  suitable  persons  "  appointed 
by  them,  to  summon  and  call  to  their  aid  the  by-standers,  or 
posse  comitatus  of  the  proper  county,  when  necessary  to  insure  a 
faithful  observance  of  the  clause  of  the  Constitution  referred  to 
(that  touching  the  delivery  of  fugitives  from  labor  or  service) ; 
"  and  all  good  citizens  are  hereby  commanded  to  aid  and  assist 
in  the  prompt  and  efficient  execution  of  this  law,  whenever  their 

people — as  the  opponents  of  Texas  alleged — had  never  seen  a  Texan  officer  nor 
obeyed  any  other  than  Mexican  laws.  These  opponents  claimed  further,  that  all 
this  vast  and  important  country  had  been  conquered  by  the  armies  of  the  United 
States,  and  that  the  United  States  had  acquired  title  to  it  by  paying  to  Mexico  its 
full  value  in  money. 

It  is  historically  true,  no  doubt,  that  Texas  had  never  exercised  undisputed  acts  of 
sovereignty  in  that  territory,  but  she  had  asserted  her  claim  to  its  sovereignty  under 
circumstances  of  great  and  tragic  interest. 

The  question  of  the  right  to  this  immense  extent  of  country  was  one  of  deep 
interest  in  its  relations  to  the  pending  struggle  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  Texas 
asserted  her  claim  even  to  the  point  of  raising  an  army  to  enforce  it  as  against  the 
United  States,  though  at  the  same  moment  the  United  States  were  supporting  an 
army  upon  her  frontier  for  the  protection  of  her  people  against  the  Indians. 

1  This  was  the  provision  in  the  bill  originally  presented  in  the  Senate,  January 
4,  1850,  but  afterward  modified  as  to  the  number  of  the  commissioners. 


124  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

services  may  be  required."  The  claimant  was  authorized  to 
pursue  and  seize  fugitives  either  upon  a  duly-issued  process  or 
without  process,  where. that  could  be  done;  and  upon  being 
taken  before  a  court  or  commissioner,  it  became  the  duty  of  that 
officer  to  hear  and  determine  the  case  in  a  summary  manner, 
and  upon  satisfactory  proof  of  the  identity  of  the  fugitive  and 
that  the  alleged  service  or  labor  was  really  owing,  to  issue  to  the 
claimant  a  certificate  setting  forth  the  facts,  and  authorizing  the 
claimant  to  use  the  force  proper  and  necessary  to  remove  the 
fugitive ;  this  certificate  to  be  final  and  conclusive  in  all  respects. 
And  in  no  trial  or  hearing  under  the  act  was  the  testimony  of 
the  fugitive  to  be  admitted  in  evidence.  Any  person  who  should 
knowingly  or  willingly  obstruct,  hinder,  or  prevent  the  arrest  of 
a  fugitive  slave ;  or  who  should  rescue  or  attempt  to  rescue  a 
fugitive  slave ;  or  who  should  aid  or  abet  or  assist  a  fugitive 
slave,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  escape ;  or  who  should  harbor  or 
conceal  a  fugitive  slave,  so  as  to  prevent  discovery  or  arrest  of 
such  fugitive  slave,  after  notice  or  knowledge  that  the  person  was 
a  fugitive  slave — was  to  be  subject  to  a  fine  not  exceeding  one 
thousand  dollars  and  imprisonment  not  exceeding  six  months ; 
and,  moreover,  was  to  forfeit  and  pay  to  the  party  losing  the 
fugitive,  by  way  of  civil  damages,  the  sum  of  one  thousand  dol 
lars,  precisely.  The  fees  of  the  commissioner  were  to  be  ten 
dollars  in  each  case  where  a  certificate  authorizing  the  removal 
of  the  fugitive  was  delivered  to  the  claimant ;  and  only  five  dol 
lars  in  cases  where,  in  the  opinion  of  the  commissioner,  the  proof 
was  not  sufficient  to  warrant  the  delivery  of  such  certificate. 

This  bill  was  denounced  in  the  North  with  great  vehemence 
by  journals  and  men  of  all  parties,  and  by  none  more  conspicu 
ously  than  by  Democratic  newspapers  in  Ohio.  It  was  declared 
to  be  an  insult  and  a  menace  upon  the  Northern  people ;  that 
it  transformed  them  from  freemen  into  a  nation  of  slave-catchers ; 
that  it  offered  bribes  to  public  officers;  that  it  abrogated  the 
right  of  trial  by  jury ;  that  it  was  a  dangerous  attack  upon  the 
personal  liberty  of  every  citizen  of  a  free  State ;  that,  in  a  word, 
it  was  a  "bill  of  abominations." 

Mr.  Chase  opposed  the  bill  with  peculiar  and  persevering 
earnestness.  "  It  seems  to  be  taken  for  granted,"  he  said  with 
a  good  deal  of  bitterness,  "  that  but  one  class  of  rights  are  to  be 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  ACT.  125 

regarded  by  us — the  rights  of  masters.  ...  I  do  not  believe 
that  a  slave-claimant  can  go  into  any  State  of  this  Union,  and 
seize  a  person  under  the  protection  of  its  laws,  and  upon  mere 
assertion  that  the  person  seized  is  a  fugitive  from  service,  carry 
him  off  without  process  by  private  force.  I  deny  utterly  that 
such  a  proceeding  is  warranted  by  the  Constitution."  He  de 
clared  that  such  an  enactment  must  lead  to  the  most  serious  diffi 
culties  ;  that  it  would  stir  up  tumult ;  that  so  far  from  making 
slave-property  more  secure,  it  would  surely  make  it  less  so. 
This  latter  declaration  Mr.  Butler,  of  South  Carolina,  conceded 
to  be  true.  He  offered  an  amendment  to  the  bill  denying  the 
right  of  reclamation  in  the  Territories  of  the  Union,  and  con 
fining  it  to  cases  of  escape  from  one  State  into  another  State. 
"  If  slaveholding  is  condemned  by  the  law  of  Nature,  as  the  de 
cisions  of  the  courts  even  of  slave  States  declare  it  is ;  if  slavery 
is  a  local  institution,  created  by  State  law  and  dependent  upon 
State  law  for  its  continuance  and  existence,  let  us  act  upon  this 
principle  as  if  we  believed  in  it,  and  declare  that  slavery  cannot 
be  extended  beyond  State  jurisdiction,  and  deny  to  its  support 
the  power  of  the  national  Government  in  the  Territories."  For 
this  amendment  there  was  a  solitary  vote ;  that  of  Mr.  Chase 
himself !  and  forty-one  Senators  voted  against  it — including 
Hamlin,  afterward  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  and 
Dayton,  afterward  minister  to  the  court  of  France.  He  offered 
another  amendment,  the  effect  of  which  would  be — if  adopted — 
to  admit  a  trial  by  jury  upon  the  question  whether  an  alleged 
fugitive  really  owed  service  in  another  State.  Claims  of  right 
in  the  services  of  individuals  found  under  the  protection  of  the 
laws  of  a  free  State,  he  declared,  ought  to  be  investigated  in  the 
same  manner  as  other  claims  of  right,  and  the  defense  to  the 
claim  to  the  custody  and  service  of  any  man  ought  to  be  as  free 
from  embarrassment  as  any  other  defense  against  any  other 
claim.  "  If  the  most  ordinary  controversy,"  he  said,  "  involving 
a  contested  claim  to  twenty  dollars  must  be  decided  by  a  jury, 
surely  a  controversy  which  involves  the  right  of  a  man  to  his 
liberty,  should  have  a  similar  trial."  But  of  course  his  amend 
ment  was  rejected,  and  in  a  very  summary  way  too. 

At  last  all  the  measures  recommended  by  the  committee  be 
came  laws,  though  not  in  the  forms  in  which  they  were  recom- 


126  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

mended.  They  were  intended  to  compose  the  whole  slavery  agita 
tion  ;  to  be  a  complete  and  final  adjustment  of  all  the  questions 
growing  out  of  the  subject.  A  number  of  the  friends  of  the 
measures  signed  a  compact,  pledging  themselves  to  vote  for  no 
man  for  any  office  who  would  in  any  way  renew  the  agitation. 
Among  these  were  Henry  Clay,  Howell  Cobb,  Alaxander  H. 
Stephens,  Robert  Toombs,  and  Humphrey  Marshall. 

The  first  session  of  the  Thirty-first  Congress  ended  on  the 
30th  day  of  September,  1850,  after  ten  months  of  continu 
ous  and  exciting  labors;  and  five-sixths  of  the  whole  session 
was  devoted  to  the  consideration  and  discussion  of  the  slavery 
question  in  some  one  of  its  various  phases — a  portentous  fact, 
showing  how  full  of  dangers  the  subject  was  and  how  difficult 
it  was  to  compose  them. 

.  .  .  There  was  very  little  discussion  of  the  slavery  question 
during  the  whole  of  the  Thirty-second  Congress.  Some  me 
morials  were  presented,  praying  the  repeal  of  the  fugitive  slave 
law,  but  of  course  no  action  was  had  in  that  direction. 

Mr.  Sumner  took  his  seat  in  the  Senate  at  the  beginning  of 
this  Congress,  and  signalized  his  advent  by  a  powerful  speech  in 
advocacy  of  the  immediate  repeal  of  the  fugitive  slave  act.  His 
speech  occasioned  a  profound  sensation  among  Senators,  and  was 
variously  characterized.  Mr.  Badger,  of  North  Carolina,  said 
it  was  the  most  extraordinary  speech  ever  heard  in  the  Senate ; 
Mr.  Douglas  said  it  was  an  assault  upon  the  Constitution ;  Mr. 
"Weller,  of  California,  said  it  counseled  to  murder ;  Mr.  Chase 
said  it  marked  an  era  in  American  history.  "It  would  dis 
tinguish  the  day  when  the  advocates  of  that  theory  of  govern 
mental  policy  and  constitutional  construction,"  which,  he  said, 
Mr.  Sumner  had  so  ably  defended,  "  no  longer  content  to  stand 
on  the  defensive  in  the  contest  with  slavery,  boldly  attacked  the 
very  citadel  of  its  power,  in  attacking  that  doctrine  of  finality, 
which  two  of  the  political  parties  of  the  country,  through  their 
national  organizations,  were  attempting  to  establish  as  the  im 
pregnable  defense  of  its  usurpations." 

A  strong  effort  was  made  to  organize  a  territorial  govern 
ment  in  Nebraska.  A  bill  passed  the  House  for  that  purpose. 
It  contained  no  prohibition  of  slavery,  but  received  the  support 
of  antislavery  members  because  they  believed  that  slavery  was 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  ACT.  127 

excluded  from  the  Territory  by  operation  of  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise  Act.  On  the  last  night  of  the  second  session — March  3, 
1853 — Mr.  Douglas  moved  in  the  Senate  to  take  up  this  bill. 
He  said  that  for  eight  years  he  had  been  pressing  it,  beginning 
when  he  was  in  the  House  of  Representatives ;  that  it  was  very 
dear  to  his  heart,  and  of  immense  magnitude  and  of  great  im 
port  to  the  country.  Of  its  infinite  great  magnitude  and  import 
to  the  country  how  little  the  Senator  then  knew !  But  his  mo 
tion  was  not  successful.  In  the  course  of  a  very  brief  debate 
upon  it,  Mr.  Atchison,  a  pro-slavery  Senator  from  Missouri — 
afterward  notorious  for  his  participation  in  the  border-wars  of 
Kansas — made  an  important  statement.  One  of  his  objections 
to  the  bill  was,  he  said,  that  under  it  the  Compromise  of  1820 
— the  Missouri  restriction  upon  slavery  extension — would  be 
operative  unless  especially  rescinded ;  and  of  that  there  was  no 
hope  or  prospect.  He  declared  the  Missouri  Compromise  to 
have  been  a  great  error,  for  which,  however,  there  was  no  rem 
edy  and  to  which  the  South  must  submit. 


CHAPTER    XY. 

"THE  ERA  OF  SLAVE-HUNTING" — SECOND  SESSION  OF  THE  THIRTY- 
SECOND   CONGRESS MEETING  OF    THE    NATIONAL    CONVENTIONS 

OF  THE  WHIG  AND  DEMOCRATIC  PARTIES  IN  1852 THEIR  DEC 
LARATIONS  AND  NOMINATIONS MR.  CHASE'S  LETTER  TO  B.  F. 

BUTLER,  OF  NEW  YORK ACTION  OF  THE  NEW  YORK  DEMOC 
RACY — THE  VIEWS  OF  MR.  CHASE  TOUCHING  THAT  ACTION — 
NATIONAL  FREE-SOIL  CONVENTION  AT  PITTSBURG ITS  PLAT 
FORM THE  ELECTION  OF  GENERAL  PIERCE FORECAST  OF  THE 

FUTURE. 

npHE  compromise  measures  of  1850  were  promptly  fol- 
-L  lowed  by  what  has  been  aptly  called  "  the  era  of  slave-hunt 
ing."  The  enforcement  of  the  fugitive  slave  act  was  marked  by 
much  excitement  and  some  not  serious  disorder  in  Northern 
States;  but  enough  to  make  the  act  peculiarly  obnoxious  to 
many  others  than  the  antislavery  agitators.  While  there  was 
a  general  and  perhaps  decided  acquiescence  in  the  compromise, 
this  particular  feature  of  it  kept  alive  irritation,  and  counter 
acted,  at  least  partially,  the  influence  of  the  scheme  of  adjust 
ment  as  a  whole.  The  capture  of  "  Shadrach  "  at  Boston,  and 
his  rescue  by  some  friends  of  his  own  race  and  color,  were  the 
occasion  of  a  real  excitement ;  a  good  deal  intensified  by  the 
action  of  the  President  (Mr.  Fillmore),  who  issued  a  proclama 
tion,  calling  on  the  people  to  be  active  and  vigilant  in  enforcing 
the  laws,  meaning  of  course  the  fugitive  slave  law  very  partic 
ularly  ;  while  the  Secretaries  of  War  and  of  the  Navy  fulmi 
nated  general  orders,  addressed  to  the  military  and  naval  branches 


NATIONAL  CONTENTIONS  OF   1852.  129 

of  the  public  service,  charging  officers  and  men  to  be  ready  at 
their  several  posts  of  duty  to  aid  in  catching  fugitives,  which 
excited  much  indignation  among  the  people. 

The  second  session  of  the  Thirty-second  Congress  was  not 
important  in  any  action  upon  the  slavery  question.  Mr.  Fill- 
more  communicated  a  message  to  the  Senate  devoted  to  the 
fugitive  slave  law,  which  grew  out  of  the  case  of  Shadrach; 
there  were  a  great  many  petitions  presented  for  the  repeal  of 
that  law,  and  some  discussion  upon  them,  but  no  action  ;  and  a 
resolution  proposing  an  inquiry  into  the  propriety  of  paying 
the  Spanish  claimants  in  the  case  of  the  Amistad  slave-ship, 
was  introduced  by  Mr.  Mason,  of  Virginia,  and  opposed  by  Mr. 
Chase.  These,  and  some  discussion  upon  a  proposal  of  Mr. 
Clay  to  make  more  effectual  provision  for  the  suppression  of  the 
African  slave-trade,  constituted  about  the  sum  total  of  the 
slavery  agitation  during  the  session. 

The  compromise  measures  had  been  supported  by  almost  the 
entire  body  of  the  Democratic  party  in  Congress,  though  opposed 
by  a  majority  of  the  Ohio  representatives,  and  had  been  almost 
universally  denounced  by  the  Democratic  press  of  that  State. 
For  a  time  it  seemed  possible  that  they  might  be  repudiated 
by  the  Northern  Democrats. 

But  when  the  National  Convention  of  the  party  met  on  the 
1st  of  June,  1852,  for  the  nomination  of  candidates  for  President 
and  Yice-President,  it  became  speedily  apparent  that  no  such 
hope  was  to  be  realized.  The  convention  strongly  denounced 
any  efforts  of  the  abolitionists,  or  of  others,  to  induce  Congress 
to  interfere  with  questions  of  slavery,  or  to  take  incipient  steps 
on  the  subject,  as  calculated  to  lead  to  the  most  alarming  and 
dangerous  consequences.  It  declared  that  the  Democratic  party 
would  abide  by  and  adhere  to  a  faithful  execution  of  the  acts 
known  as  the  compromise  measures  of  1850 — including  the  fugi 
tive  slave  act ;  which  act  "  being  designed  to  carry  out  an  express 
provision  of  the  Constitution,  cannot,  with  fidelity  thereto,  be 
repealed,  nor  so  changed  as  to  destroy  or  impair  its  efficiency." 
It  was  solemnly  declared,  finally,  "  that  the  Democratic  party 
will  resist  all  attempts  at  renewing  in  Congress  or  out  of  it,  the 
agitation  of  the  slavery  question,  under  whatever  shape  or  color 
it  may  be  made." 
9 


130  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

The  nominations  of  this  convention  were — for  President, 
Franklin  Pierce,  of  New  Hampshire ;  for  Vice-President,  Wil 
liam  R.  King,  of  Alabama. 

A  few  days  later — on  the  16th  of  June * — the  "Whigs  also 
met  in  national  council.  Upon  the  slavery  question  they  took 
substantially  the  same  ground  as,  if  not  even  stronger  and  more 
emphatic  than,  the  Democracy.  They  resolved  that  "  the  series  of 
acts  known  as  the  compromise  measures  of  1850 — the  act  known 
as  the  fugitive  slave  law  included — are  received  and  acquiesced 
in  by  the  "Whig  party  of  the  United  States  as  a  settlement, 
in  principle  and  substance,  of  the  dangerous  and  exciting  ques 
tions  which  they  embrace ;  and,  so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  we 
will  maintain  them  and  insist  on  their  strict  enforcement,  until 
time  and  experience  shall  demonstrate  the  necessity  of  further 
legislation  to  guard  against  the  evasion  of  the  laws  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  abuse  of  their  powers  on  the  other — not  impair 
ing  their  present  efficiency ;  and  we  deprecate  all  further  agita 
tion  of  the  question  thus  settled,  as  dangerous  to  our  peace,  and 
will  discountenance  all  efforts  to  continue  or  renew  such  agita 
tion  whenever,  wherever  or  however  the  attempt  may  be  made ; 
and  we  will  maintain  this  system  as  essential  to  the  nationality 
of  the  Whig  party  and  the  integrity  of  the  Union." 

General  "Winfield  Scott  was  nominated  for  President  and 
William  A.  Graham,  of  North  Carolina,  for  Vice-President. 

The  candidates  of  both  parties  professed  prompt  and  zealous 
adhesion  to  the  platforms  presented  for  their  acceptance ;  and 
one  of  them  became  an  itinerant  solicitor,  in  his  own  behalf  and 
that  of  the  party  whose  standard-bearer  he  was,  for  the  popular 
suffrages. 

Mr.  Chase  interpreted  these  platforms  and  nominations  to 
mean  resistance  not  to  pro-slavery,  but  to  antislavery  agitation. 
He  did  not  long  hesitate  as  to  the  course  he  ought  to  pursue. 
He  addressed  a  letter  to  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  of  New  York,  one 
of  his  associates  in  the  great  work  of  the  Buffalo  Convention, 
declaring  his  determination  to  adhere  to  the  principles  announced 
there,  and  to  act  with  the  only  party  faithful  to  those  principles ; 
that  is,  with  the  Independent  Democracy,  who  had  continued  to 
maintain  their  organization,  and  had  called  a  National  Convention 

1  Both  the  Democratic  and  Whig  Conventions  were  held  in  Baltimore. 


FREE-SOIL  NATIONAL  CONVENTION,   1852.  131 

to  meet  at  Pittsburg  on  the  llth  of  August — and  he  earnestly 
urged  Mr.  Butler,  and  through  Mr.  Butler  those  Democrats  who 
had  acted  with  him  at  Buffalo,  to  maintain  the  ground  they  had 
there  taken. 

"  I  shall  ever  lament,"  says  Mr.  Chase,  in  one  of  the  Trow- 
bridge  letters,  "  that  this  appeal  was  not  heeded.  The  party  of 
freedom  had  given  in  1840,  while  unorganized,  one  vote  in  every 
three  hundred  and  fifty  of  the  votes  cast  in  the  United  States. 
In  184:4,  it  had  given  one  vote  in  every  forty-four,  and  in  1848, 
it  had  given  one  vote  in  ten  and  almost  one  in  nine.  This,  it 
must  be  remembered,  was  the  proportion  in  the  free  States  of 
the  whole  vote  of  the  United  States.  The  proportion  in  the  free 
States,  considered  by  themselves,  must  of  course  have  been  much 
larger.  It  cannot  be  doubted,  I  think,  that  had  the  New  York 
Democracy  in  1852  adhered  to  the  principles  avowed  in  1848, 
and  refused  to  support  the  Baltimore  nominations  upon  a  plat 
form  repugnant  to  the  sentiments  and  convictions  of  a  large  ma 
jority  of  the  Northern  people,  a  vote  would  have  been  given  to 
the  nominees  of  the  Independent  Democracy  which,  if  not  suf 
ficient  to  elect  its  candidates,  would  have  insured  the  election  of 
General  Scott,  and  the  consequent  union  of  nearly  the  whole 
Democratic  party,  in  the  course  of  the  following  year,  upon  the 
principles  of  the  Independent  Democracy.  The  Democracy  of 
the  Union — united  upon  those  principles — would  have  been  in 
vincible  ;  and  slavery,  excluded  from  the  Territories,  would  have 
been  ameliorated,  diminished,  and  finally  abolished  by  State  ac 
tion.  The  rebellion,  in  all  probability,  would  have  been  avoided, 
and  the  Union  would  have  been  preserved  unbroken,  and  pre 
served  not  for  slavery  but  for  freedom.  I  took  great  pains  to 
explain  these  views  to  many,  and  a  good  deal  of  apprehension 
was  manifested  by  certain  slave-State  Senators  lest  they  should 
be  adopted." 

The  Free-Soilers  met  at  Pittsburg,  and  nominated  for  Presi 
dent  John  P.  Ilale  and  for  Yice-President  George  "W.  Julian. 
They  adopted  a  platform  of  unequivocal  hostility  to  slavery  ex 
tension,  in  favor  of  slavery  restriction,  and  in  emphatic  denuncia 
tion  of  the  fugitive  slave  law.  They  declared  the  true  "  mission 
of  American  Democracy  to  be,  to  maintain  the  liberties  of  the 
people,  the  sovereignty  of  the  States,  and  the  perpetuity  of  the 


132  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Union,  by  the  impartial  application  to  public  affairs,  without  sec 
tional  discrimination,  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  equal 
rights,  strict  justice  and  economical  administration.  That  to  the 
importunate  and  persevering  demands  of  the  slave-power  for 
more  slave  States,  new  slave  Territories,  and  the  nationalization 
of  slavery,  our  distinct  and  final  answer  is — no  more  slave  States, 
no  more  slave  Territory,  no  nationalized  slavery,  and  no  national 
legislation  for  the  extradition  of  slaves."  The  fugitive  slave  act 
was  denounced  as  repugnant  to  the  Constitution,  to  the  princi 
ples  of  the  common  law,  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  and  to  the 
sentiments  of  the  civilized  world.  They  demanded  its  immedi 
ate  and  unconditional  repeal.  They  declared  the  doctrine  that 
any  human  law  is  a  finality  and  not  subject  to  modification  or 
repeal,  as  not  in  accordance  with  the  creed  of  the  founders 
of  the  government  and  dangerous  to  the  liberties  of  the  peo 
ple.  They  denounced  the  payment  of  ten  millions  to  Texas ; 
and  declared  that  there  could  be  no  permanent  settlement  of 
the  slavery  question,  except  in  the  practical  recognition  of  the 
truth  that  slavery  was  sectional  and  freedom  national,  by  the 
total  separation  of  the  Federal  Government  from  slavery,  and 
the  exercise  of  its  legitimate  and  constitutional  influence  on  the 
side  of  freedom,  and  by  leaving  to  the  States  the  whole  subject 
of  slavery,  including  the  extradition  of  fugitives  from  service. 

Upon  these  views  of  the  question  of  slavery,  the  free  De 
mocracy  appealed  to  the  people  of  the  country  for  support. 

The  New  York  Democrats  did  not  respond  either  to  the  per 
sonal  appeal  of  Mr.  Chase  or  to  the  united  voice  of  the  Pittsburg 
Convention,  but  almost  unanimously  went  to  the  support  of  Gen 
eral  Pierce,  who  was  elected  of  course.  Their  defection,  and  that 
of  those  influenced  by  their  example  in  other  States,  reduced  the 
vote  of  the  Independent  Democrats  from  291,678  in  1848  to 
157,296  in  1852 ;  or  about  one  in  twenty  of  the  whole  votes  cast. 
Near  three-fourths  of  the  entire  defection  was  in  New  York.  In 
Ohio  the  vote  for  Hale  in  1852  was  about  four  thousand  less 
than  for  Yan  Buren  in  1848 ;  Yan  Buren's  vote  having  been 
35,354 ;  Sale's  was  31,682,  and  the  Old-line  Democracy  carried 
the  State. 

The  agreement  of  the  two  old  parties  upon  substantially  the 
same  platform,  and  the  election  of  General  Pierce,  devolved  up- 


POLITICAL  PROBABILITIES.  133 

on  the  Democratic  party  the  whole  responsibility  of  that  plat 
form.  The  reorganization  of  parties  became  inevitable,  and  as 
the  platform  of  the  Independent  Democrats  alone  represented 
antagonism  to  the  invasions  of  slavery,  it  became  certain  also 

t/  7 

that  the  principles  of  that  party  must  form  the  basis  of  oppo 
sition  to  the  Administration,  which  in  the  logic  of  events  would 
inevitably  be  driven  into  new  concessions  to  the  slave-power. 


CHAPTEE    XYI. 

MEETING  OF  THE   THIRTY-THIRD   CONGRESS  IN  DECEMBER,  1853 EX 
TRACT    FROM    THE    MESSAGE    OF    PRESIDENT    PIERCE PLEDGES 

HIMSELF    IN    BEHALF    OF    THE     QUIET    AND    HARMONY    OF    THE 

COUNTRY NEBRASKA   BILL   INTRODUCED    INTO   THE   SENATE   BY 

MR.  DOUGLAS — EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  REPORT  WHICH  ACCOM 
PANIED  THE  BILL REPEAL  OF  MISSOURI  RESTRICTION  PROPOSED 

BY  MR.  DIXON,  OF  KENTUCKY MR.  SUMNER's  COUNTER-PROPO 
SITION — DENUNCIATIONS  BY  THE  "  WASHINGTON  UNION  "  OF  THE 

AMENDMENTS   OF  SENATORS    DIXON  AND    SUMNER "  THE   SOUTH 

WIND  THICK  WITH  STORM " MR.  DOUGLAS  PROPOSES  THE  RE 
PEAL  OF  THE  MISSOURI  RESTRICTION MODIFICATION  OF  THE 

ALLEGED  GROUND  OF  REPEAL — THE  ADMINISTRATION  PLEDGES 
ITSELF  TO  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  "  NpN-LNTERVENTION "  EMBODIED 
IN  THE  NEBRASKA  BILL. 

PEESIDENT  PIEECE,  in  his  first  annual  message,  sub 
mitted  to  Congress  on  the  6th  of  December,  1853,  felici 
tated  his  countrymen  upon  the  prevailing  peace  and  quiet. 

"  We  are  not  only  at  peace  with  all  the  world,"  he  said,  "  but 
in  regard  to  political  affairs,  we  are  exempt  from  any  cause  of 
serious  disquietude  in  our  domestic  relations.  The  controversies 
which  have  agitated  the  country  heretofore,  are  passing  away 
with  the  causes  that  produced  them  and  the  passions  they  had 
awakened ;  or,  if  any  trace  of  them  remains,  it  may  be  reason 
ably  hoped  that  it  will  only  be  perceived  in  the  zealous  rivalry 
of  all  good  citizens  to  testify  their  respect  for  the  rights  of  the 
States,  their  devotion  to  the  Union,  and  their  common  determi- 


PLEDGES  OF  PRESIDENT  PIERCE.  135 

nation  that  each  one  of  the  States,  its  institutions,  its  welfare, 
and  its  domestic  peace,  shall  be  held  alike  secure  under  the  sacred 
segis  of  the  Constitution." 

He  declared  his  fixed  purpose  to  maintain,  so  far  as  respon 
sibility  rested  with  him,  the  quiet  and  harmony  of  the  country. 
"  It  is  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  give  prominence,"  he  said,  "  to 
any  subject  which  may  properly  be  regarded  as  set  at  rest  by  the 
deliberate  judgment  of  the  people.  But  while  the  present  is 
bright  with  promise,  and  the  future  full  of  demand  and  induce 
ment  for  the  exercise  of  active  intelligence,  the  past  can  never 
be  without  useful  lessons  of  admonition  and  instruction.  If  its 
dangers  serve  not  as  beacons,  they  will  evidently  fail  to  fulfill 
the  object  of  a  wise  design.  When  the  grave  shall  have  closed 
over  all  who  are  now  endeavoring  to  meet  the  obligations  of 
duty,  the  year  1850  will  be  recurred  to  as  a  period  filled  with 
anxious  apprehension.  A  successful '  war  had  just  terminated. 
Peace  brought  with  it  a  vast  augmentation  of  territory.  Dis 
turbing  questions  arose,  bearing  upon  the  domestic  institutions 
of  one  portion  of  the  Confederacy,  and  involving  the  consti 
tutional  rights  of  the  gtates.  But,  notwithstanding  differences 
of  opinion  and  sentiment,  which  then  existed  in  relation  to  de 
tails  and  specific  provisions,  the  acquiescence  of  distinguished 
citizens,  whose  devotion  to  the  Union  can  never  be  doubted,  had 
given  renewed  vigor  to  our  institutions,  and  restored  a  sense  of 
repose  and  security  to  the  public  mind  throughout  the  Confed 
eracy.  That  this  repose  is  to  suffer  no  shock  during  my  official 
term,  if  I  have  power  to  avert  it,  those  who  placed  me  here  may 
be  assured." 

These  were  the  pledges  of  President  Pierce  made  to  the  peo 
ple  of  the  country  on  the  6th  of  December,  1853. 

On  the  4th  of  January,  1854,  Mr.  Douglas,  of  Illinois,  chair 
man  of  the  Committee  on  Territories,  reported  in  the  Senate  a 
bill  for  establishing  a  government  in  the  Territory  of  Nebraska. 
This  bill  contained  no  express  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
restriction,  nor  did  it  prohibit  slavery ;  but  was  accompanied  by 
a  report,  in  which  the  committee  said  that  they  refrained  from 
entering  upon  any  controversy  with  respect  to  the  constitutional 
validity  of  the  Missouri  restriction  (which  had  been  questioned), 
as  "  it  would  involve  the  same  issues  which  produced  the  agita- 


136  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

tion,  the  sectional  strife,  and  the  fearful  struggle  of  1850.  As 
Congress  deemed  it  wise  and  prudent  to  refrain  from  deciding 
the  matters  in  controversy  then — either  by  affirming  or  repealing 
the  Mexican  laws,  or  by  an  act  declaratory  of  the  true  intent  of 
the  Constitution,  and  the  extent  of  the  protection  afforded  by  it 
to  slave-property — so  we  are  not  prepared  to  recommend  a  de 
parture  from  the  course  pursued  on  that  memorable  occasion, 
either  by  affirming  or  repealing  the  eighth  section  of  the  Mis 
souri  act,  or  by  any  act  declaratory  of  the  meaning  of  the  Con 
stitution  in  respect  to  the  legal  points  in  dispute,"  but  the  com 
mittee  submitted  a  section  at  the  same  time,  in  these  words : 
"  That  in  order  to  avoid  all  misconstruction,  it  is  hereby  declared 
to  be  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  this  act,  so  far  as  the  ques 
tion  of  slavery  is  concerned,  to  carry  into  practical  operation  the 
following  propositions  and  principles,  established  by  the  com 
promise  measures  of  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  fifty,  to 
wit :  First.  That  all  questions  pertaining  to  slavery  in  the  Ter 
ritories,  and  in  the  new  States  to  be  formed  therefrom,  are  to  be 
left  to  the  decision  of  the  people  residing  therein,  through  their 
appropriate  representatives.  Second.  That  *  all  cases  involving 
title  to  slaves '  and  ( questions  of  personal  freedom,'  are  referred 
to  the  adjudication  of  the  local  tribunals,  with  the  right  of  appeal 
to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  Third.  That  the 
provisions  of  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  of  the  United  States 
in  respect  to  fugitives  from  service,  are  to  be  earned  into  faith 
ful  execution  in  all  the  c  organized  Territories '  the  same  as  in  the 
States." 

On  the  16th  of  January  Mr.  Dixon,  a  TVTiig  Senator  from 
Kentucky,  gave  notice  that  when  the  Nebraska  Bill  should  come 
up  for  consideration,  he  should  move  as  an  amendment,  that  so 
much  of  the  Missouri  .Compromise  Act  as  excluded  slavery  from 
the  territory  ceded  by  France  to  the  United  States,  which  lies 
north  of  thirty-six  degrees  thirty  minutes,  should  not  be  con 
strued  to  apply  to  the  act  for  organizing  a  territorial  government 
in  Nebraska,  but  that  the  citizens  of  the  several  States  and  Ter 
ritories  should  be  at  liberty  to  take  and  hold  their  slaves  within 
any  of  the  Territories  or  of  the  States  to  be  formed  from  them. 
Mr.  Dixon  afterward  explained  that  he  was  a  pro-slavery  man 
from  a  slaveholding  State,  and  represented  a  slaveholding  con- 


THE  NEBRASKA  BILL.  137 

stituency ;  and  that  it  was  his  purpose  to  maintain  their  rights 
whenever  any  question  affecting  them  was  brought  before  the 
people.  Where  slavery  was  concerned,  he  declared  he  was  neither 
Whig  nor  Democrat. 

The  next  day — Tuesday,  January  17th — Mr.  Sumner  gave 
notice  that  he  should  move  as  an  amendment  to  the  bill  that 
nothing  contained  in  it  should  be  construed  to  abrogate  or  in 
any  way  contravene  the  section  in  the  Missouri  Compromise  Act, 
which  forever  prohibited  slavery  in  all  the  territory  ceded  by 
France  lying  north  of  thirty-six  degrees  and  thirty  minutes. 

Mr.  Douglas  gave  notice  at  the  same  time  that  he  should,  on 
the  next  Monday  (January  23d),  move  to  take  up  the  Nebraska 
Bill.  He  said  he  gave  this  notice  in  order  to  call  the  attention 
of  Senators  to  the  subject. 

The  newspaper  organ  of  General  Pierce's  Administration — 
the  Washington  Union,  on  Friday,  January  20th — denounced 
the  proposed  amendments  of  both  Mr.  Dixon  and  Mr.  Sumner, 
as  coming  from  members  of  two  parties  irreconcilably  opposed 
to  Democratic  ascendency.  "  It  may  be  well  for  us  to  scrutinize 
with  care  the  movements  of  those  who  are  our  uniform  oppo 
nents.  That  abolitionists  would  rejoice  to  see  the  fires  of  dis 
cord  rekindled  by  the  revival  of  the  slavery  agitation,  no  one 
can  doubt.  Those  who  have  perused  the  extracts  from  Senator 
Sumner's  speech,  which  we  lately  published,  will  be  slow  to 
suppose  that  agitation  is  not  his  object  in  offering  his  amend 
ment.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  nothing  in  the  past  history 
of  the  "Whig  party  which  ought  to  make  it  offensive  in  us  to  say, 
that  of  late  years  its  only  hopes  of  ascendency  have  been  based 
upon  the  slavery  agitation  in  some  one  of  its  forms.  .  .  .  Pru 
dence,  patriotism,  devotion  to  the  Union,  the  interest  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party,  all  suggest  that  that  public  sentiment  which  now 
acquiesces  cheerfully  in  the  principles  of  the  Compromise  of 
1850,  should  not  be  inconsiderately  disturbed.  The  triumphant 
election  of  President  Pierce  shows  that  on  this  basis  the  hearts 
and  the  judgments  of  the  people  are  with  the  Democracy. 
We  venture  to  suggest  that  it  is  well  worthy  of  consideration, 
whether  a  faithful  adherence  to  the  creed  which  has  been  so 
triumphantly  indorsed  by  THE  PEOPLE,  does  not  require  all  good 
Democrats  to  hesitate  and  reflect  maturely  upon  any  proposition 


138  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

which  any  member  of  our  party  can  object  to  as  an  interpo 
lation  upon  that  creed.  In  a  word,  it  would  be  wise  in  all 
Democrats  to  consider  whether  it  would  not  be  safest  to  let  well 
enough  alone.  To  repeal  the  Missouri  Compromise  might,  and 
according  to  our  view,  would  clear  the  principle  of  congressional 
non-intervention  of  all  embarrassment ;  but  we  doubt  whether 
the  good  thus  promised  is  so  important  that  it  would  be  wise  to 
seek  it  through  the  agitation  which  necessarily  stands  in  our 
path.  Upon  a  calm  review  of  the  whole  ground,  we  yet  see  no 
such  reasons  for  disturbing  the  Compromise  of  1820,  as  could 
induce  us  to  advocate  either  of  the  amendments  proposed  to 
Mr.  Douglas's  bill."  In  the  same  article  the  Union  said,  how 
ever — "  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  bill,  as  proposed  by  Mr. 
Douglas,  reenacts  and  applies  to  Nebraska  the  clause  on  slavery 
adopted  in  the  Compromise  of  1850.  That  clause  is  silent  as  to 
the  question  of  slavery  during  the  territorial  condition  of  the 
inhabitants,  but  expressly  recognizes  and  asserts  their  right  to 
come  into  the  Union  as  a  State,  either  with  or  without  the  insti 
tution  of  slavery,  as  they  may  determine  in  their  constitution." 
So  far  the  peace  of  the  country  was  undisturbed  by  a  new 
slavery  agitation.  But  now  what  ? — 

"  Euru8,  Notusque  ruunt,  creberque  procellis, 
Africus," 

said  Mr.  Chase,  quoting.     "Yes,  sir,  ( creber  procellis  Africus' 
— the  south  wind  thick  with  storm." 

On  Monday,  the  23d  of  January,  Mr.  Douglas  asked  per 
mission  to  make  a  report  from  the  Committee  on  Territories,  in 
relation  to  the  Nebraska  Bill,  which  had  been  set  apart  for  con 
sideration  that  day.  He  said  that  the  committee  had  concluded 
to  recommend  the  division  of  the  proposed  Territory  of  Ne 
braska  into  two  Territories,  and  to  change — of  course — the  boun 
dary  ;  the  second  to  be  called  Kansas.  "  "We  have  prepared  our 
amendment,"  he  said,  "  in  the  form  of  a  substitute,  to  come  in 
lieu  of  the  bill  which  we  have  already  reported.  "VYe  have  also 
incorporated  into  it  one  or  two  other  amendments,  which  make 
the  provisions  of  the  bill  upon  other  and  more  delicate  questions 
clear  and  specific,  so  as  to  avoid  all  conflict  of  opinion."  He 
asked  that  the  substitute  be  printed,  so  that  Senators  could 


"DELICATE  QUESTIONS"   MADE   CLEAR.  139 

see  what  it  was.  Mr.  Mason  asked— "I  wish  to  know 'whether 
the  amendment  now  proposed  as  a  substitute  is  reported  from 
the  committee  ? "  Mr.  Douglas  answered,  "  It  is."  Mr.  Doug 
las  said  also,  in  answer  to  other  inquiries,  that  both  Territories 
were  included  in  one  bill,  and  that  the  boundaries  were  specified 
in  each  case.  The  substitute  was  then  ordered  to  be  printed. 

One  of  the  amendments  introduced  into  the  substitute,  and 
intended  by  Mr.  Douglas  to  make  certain  delicate  questions 
more  clear  and  specific,  was  comprehended  in  these  pregnant 
words  :  "  That  the  Constitution,  and  all  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  which  are  not  locally  inapplicable,  shall  have  the  same 
force  and  effect  within  the  said  Territory  as  elsewhere  in  the 
United  States,  except  the  eighth  section  of  the  act  preparatory 
to  the  admission  of  Missouri  into  the  Union,  approved  March  6, 
1820,  which  was  superseded  by  the  principles  of  the  legislation 
of  1850,  commonly  called  the  compromise  measures,  and  is  de 
clared  inoperative  and  void  ;  it  being  the  true  intent  and  mean 
ing  of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  State  or  Terri 
tory,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom ;  but  to  leave  the  people 
thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domestic  insti 
tutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States."  * 

On  the  26th  of  January,  the  Union  newspaper  announced 
that  the  Democratic  party  was  entirely  pledged  to  the  policy 
embodied  in  Mr.  Douglas's  substitute,  and  that  the  Adminis 
tration  was  firm  in  its  resolution  to  carry  it  out ;  and  a  fortnight 
later  declared,  that  those  Democratic  members  of  Congress  who, 
supporting  the  policy  of  Mr.  Douglas's  bill,  were  discarded  by 
their  constituents,  would  be  taken  care  of  by  the  President  in 
making  distribution  of  the  public  patronage. 

1  The  history  of  this  amendment  will  appear  in  the  eighteenth  chapter  of  this 
volume. 


CHAPTEE    XYII. 

THE    APPEAL    OF    THE    INDEPENDENT    DEMOCRATS EFFECT   OF   THE 

APPEAL  UPON   THE  PUBLIC   SENTIMENT   OF   THE   NOKTH. 

IT  was  the  belief  of  the  Independent  Democrats  in  Congress, 
that  under  the  bill  introduced  by  Mr.  Douglas  on  the  4th 
of  January,  it  was  designed  that  slavery  should  be  allowed  in 
Nebraska.  The  substitute  offered  by  the  same  Senator  on  the 
23d  of  January — dividing  Nebraska  into  two  Territories,  with  a 
view,  probably,  to  devote  one  of  them  to  slavery  and  the  other 
to  freedom — ripened  that  belief  into  certainty.  Forwarned,  as 
they  felt,  they  had  already  prepared  an  appeal  to  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  advising  them  of  the  danger,  and  urging 
them  to  interpose  without  delay  to  prevent  it. 

"  As  Senators  and  Eepresentatives  in  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States,"  said  the  signers  of  this  celebrated  paper,1  "  it  is 
our  duty  to  warn  our  constituents,  whenever  imminent  danger 
menaces  the  freedom  of  our  institutions  or  the  permanency  of 
the  Union. 

"  Such  danger,  as  we  firmly  believe,  now  impends,  and  we 
earnestly  solicit  your  prompt  attention  to  it.  , 

"  At  the  last  session  of  Congress  a  bill  for  the  organization 
of  the  Territory  of  Nebraska  passed  the  House  of  Eepresenta 
tives  by  an  overwhelming  majority.  That  bill  was  based  on 
the  principle  of  excluding  slavery  from  the  new  Territory.  It 
was  not  taken  up  for  consideration  in  the  Senate,  and  conse 
quently  failed  to  become  a  law. 

1  This  paper  was  written  by  Mr.  Chase,  in  part  from  a  draft  prepared  by  Mr. 
Giddings. 


APPEAL  OF  INDEPENDENT  DEMOCRATS.  141 

"  At  the  present  session  a  new  Nebraska  Bill  has  been  re 
ported  by  the  Senate  Committee  on  Territories,  which,  should  it 
unhappily  receive  the  sanction  of  Congress,  will  open  all  the 
unorganized  Territories  of  the  Union  to  the  ingress  of  slavery. 

"  We  arraign  this  bill  as  a  gross  violation  of  a  sacred  pledge ; 
as  a  criminal  betrayal  of  precious  rights ;  as  part  and  parcel  of 
an  atrocious  plot  to  exclude  from  a  vast  unoccupied  region 
immigrants  from  the  Old  "World  and  free  laborers  from  our  own 
States,  and  convert  it  into  a  dreary  region  of  despotism,  in 
habited  by  masters  and  slaves. 

"  Take  your  maps,  fellow-citizens,  we  entreat  you,  and  see 
what  country  it  is  which  this  bill  gratuitously  and  recklessly 
proposes  to  open  to  slavery. 

"From  the  southwestern  corner  of  Missouri  pursue  the 
parallel  of  36°  30'  north  latitude  westerly  across  the  Arkansas, 
across  the  North  Fork  of  the  Canadian  to  the  northeastern  angle 
of  Texas ;  then  follow  the  northern  boundary  of  Texas  to  the 
western  limit  of  New  Mexico ;  then  proceed  along  that  western 
line  to  its  northern  termination ;  then  again  turn  westwardly, 
and  follow  the  northern  line  of  New  Mexico  to  the  crest  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains ;  then  ascend  northwardly  along  the  crest  of 
that  mountain-range  to  the  line  which  separates  the  United 
States  from  the  British  possessions  in  North  America,  on  the 
forty-ninth  parallel  of  north  latitude ;  then  pursue  your 
course  eastwardly  along  that  line  to  the  White-Earth  River, 
which  falls  into  the  Missouri  from  the  north ;  descend  that 
river  to  its  confluence  with  the  Missouri ;  descend  the  Missouri, 
along  the  western  border  of  Minnesota,  of  Iowa,  of  Missouri,  to 
the  point  where  it  ceases  to  be  a  boundary-line,  and  enters  the 
State  to  which  it  gives  its  name  then  continue  your  southward 
course  along  the  western  limit  of  that  State  to  the  point  from 
which  you  set  out.  You  have  now  made  the  circuit  of  the  pro 
posed  Territory  of  Nebraska.  You  have  traversed  the  vast 
distance  of  more  than  three  thousand  miles.  You  have  traced 
the  outline  of  an  area  of  four  hundred  and  eighty-five  thousand 
square  miles ;  more  than  twelve  times  as  great  as  that  of  Ohio. 

"  This  immense  region,  occupying  the  very  heart  of  the 
North  American  Continent,  and  larger,  by  thirty-three  thousand 
square  miles,  than  all  the  existing  free  States — including  Cali- 


142  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

f ornia ;  this  immense  region,  well  watered  and  fertile,  through 
which  the  middle  and  northern  routes  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific  must  pass,  this  immense  region,  embracing  all  the  unor 
ganized  territory  of  the  nation,  except  the  comparatively  insig 
nificant  district  of  Indian  Territory  north  of  Red  River  and  be 
tween  Arkansas  and  Texas,  and  now  for  more  than  thirty  years 
regarded  by  the  common  consent  of  the  American  people  as 
consecrated  to  freedom  by  statute  and  by  compact — this  im 
mense  region  the  bill  now  before  the  Senate,  without  reason  and 
without  excuse,  but  in  flagrant  disregard  of  sound  policy  and 
sacred  faith,  purposes  to  open  to  slavery. 

"  We  beg  your  attention,  fellow-citizens,  to  a  few  historical 
facts : 

"  The  original  settled  policy  of  the  United  States,  clearly 
indicated  by  the  Jefferson  proviso  of  1784  and  the  Ordinance 
of  1787,  was  non-extension  of  slavery. 

"  In  1803,  Louisiana  was  acquired  by  purchase  from  France. 
At  that  time  there  were  some  twenty-five  or  thirty  thousand 
slaves  in  the  Territory ;  most  of  them  within  what  is  now  the 
State  of  Louisiana ;  a  few  only,  farther  north,  on  the  west  bank 
of  the  Mississippi.  Congress,  instead  of  providing  for  the  abo 
lition  of  slavery  in  this  new  Territory,  permitted  its  continu 
ance.  In  1812  the  State  of  Louisiana  was  organized  and  ad 
mitted  into  the  Union  with  slavery. 

"  In  1818,  six  years  later,  the  inhabitants  of  the  Territory  of 
Missouri  applied  to  Congress  for  authority  to  form  a  State  con 
stitution,  and  for  admission  into  the  Union.  There  were,  at 
that  time,  in  the  whole  territory  acquired  from  France,  outside 
of  the  State  of  Louisiana,  not  three  thousand  slaves. 

"  There  was  no  apology,  in  the  circumstances  of  the  country, 
for  the  continuance  of  slavery.  The  original  national  policy 
was  against  it,  and  not  less  the  plain  language  of  the  treaty 
under  which  the  territory  had  been  acquired  from  France. 

"  It  was  proposed,  therefore,  to  incorporate  in  the  bill  author 
izing  the  formation  of  a  State  government,  a  provision  requir 
ing  that  the  constitution  of  the  new  State  should  contain  an 
article  providing  for  the  abolition  of  existing  slavery,  and  pro 
hibiting  the  further  introduction  of  slaves. 

"  This  provision  was  vehemently  and  pertinaciously  opposed, 


APPEAL  OF  INDEPENDENT  DEMOCRATS.  143 

but  finally  prevailed  in  the  House  of  Eepresentatives  by  a  de 
cided  vote.  In  the  Senate  it  was  rejected,  and — in  consequence 
of  the  disagreement  between  the  two  Houses — the  bill  was  lost. 

"At  the  next  session  of  Congress,  the  controversy  was 
renewed  with  increased  violence.  It  was  terminated  at  length 
by  a  compromise.  Missouri  was  allowed  to  come  into  the  Union 
with  slavery ;  but  a  section  was  inserted  in  the  act  authorizing 
her  admission,  excluding  slavery  forever  from  all  the  territory 
acquired  from  France,  not  included  in  the  new  State,  lying 
north  of  36°  30'.  We  quote  the  prohibitory  section : 

"  *  SECTION  8.  Be  it  further  enacted.  That  in  all  that  terri 
tory  ceded  by  France  to  the  United  States,  under  the  name  of 
Louisiana,  which  lies  north  of  36°  and  30'  of  north  latitude,  not 
included  within  the  limits  of  the  State  contemplated  by  this 
act,  slavery  and  involuntary  servitude,  otherwise  than  as  the 
punishment  of  crimes,  shall  be  and  is  hereby  forever  prohibited.' 

"  The  question  of  the  constitutionality  of  this  prohibition 
was  submitted  by  President  Monroe  to  his  cabinet.  John 
Quincy  Adams  was  then  Secretary  of  State ;  John  C.  Calhoun 
was  Secretary  of  "War ;  William  H.  Crawford  was  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  ;  and  William  Wirt  was  Attorney-General.  Each 
of  these  eminent  gentlemen — three  of  them  being  from  the 
slave  States — gave  a  written  opinion,  affirming  its  constitution 
ality,  and  thereupon  the  act  received  the  sanction  of  the  Presi 
dent  himself,  also  from  a  slave  State. 

"  Nothing  is  more  certain  in  history  than  the  fact  that  Mis 
souri  could  not  have  been  admitted  as  a  slave  State  had  not  cer 
tain  members  from  the  free  States  been  reconciled  to  the  meas 
ure  by  the  incorporation  of  this  prohibition  into  the  act  of  ad 
mission.  Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  this  prohibition  has 
been  regarded  and  accepted  by  the  whole  country  as  a  solemn 
compact  against  the  extension  of  slavery  into  any  part  of  the 
territory  acquired  from  France  lying  north  of  36°  30',  and 
not  included  in  the  new  State  of  Missouri.  The  same  act — let 
it  be  ever  remembered — which  authorized  the  formation  of  a 
constitution  by  the  State,  without  a  clause  forbidding  slavery, 
consecrated,  beyond  question  and  beyond  honest  recall,  the 
whole  remainder  of  the  Territory  to  freedom  and  free  institu 
tions  forever.  For  more  than  thirty  years — during  more  than 


144  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

half  our  national  existence  under  our  present  Constitution — 
this  compact  has  been  universally  regarded  and  acted  upon  as 
inviolable  American  law.  In  conformity  with  it,  Iowa  was 
admitted  as  a  free  State  and  Minnesota  has  been  organized  as  a 
free  Territory. 

"  It  is  a  strange  and  ominous  fact,  well  calculated  to  awaken 
the  worst  apprehensions  and  the  most  fearful  forebodings  of 
future  calamities,  that  it  is  now  deliberately  proposed  to  repeal 
this  prohibition,  by  implication  or  directly — the  latter  certainly 
the  manlier  way — and  thus  to  subvert  the  compact,  and  allow 
slavery  in  all  the  yet  unorganized  territory. 

"  We  cannot,  in  this  address,  review  the  various  pretenses 
under  which  it  is  attempted  to  cloak  this  monstrous  wrong,  but 
we  must  not  altogether  omit  to  notice  one. 

"  It  is  said  that  Nebraska  sustains  the  same  relations  to  sla 
very  as  did  the  territory  acquired  from  Mexico  prior  to  1850, 
and  that  the  pro-slavery  clauses  of  the  bill  are  necessary  to  carry 
into  effect  the  compromise  of  that  year. 

"  No  assertion  could  be  more  groundless. 

"  Three  acquisitions  of  territory  have  been  made  by  treaty. 
The  first  was  from  France.  Out  of  this  territory  have  been 
created  the  three  slave  States  of  Louisiana,  Arkansas  and  Mis 
souri,  and  the  single  free  State  of  Iowa.  The  controversy 
which  arose  in  relation  to  the  then  unorganized  portion  of  this 
territory  was  closed  in  1820  by  the  Missouri  act,  containing  the 
slavery  prohibition,  as  has  been  already  stated.  This  contro 
versy  related  only  to  territory  acquired  from  France.  The  act 
by  which  it  was  terminated  was  confined,  by  its  own  expres 
sions,  to  the  same  territory,  and  had  no  relation  to  any  other. 

"  The  second  acquisition  was  from  Spain.  Florida,  the  ter 
ritory  thus  acquired,  was  yielded  to  slavery  without  a  struggle 
and  almost  without  a  murmur. 

"  The  third  was  from  Mexico.  The  controversy  which  arose 
from  this  acquisition  is  fresh  in  the  remembrance  of  the  American 
people.  Out  of  it  sprung  the  acts  of  Congress  commonly  known 
as  the  Compromise  Measures  of  1850,  by  one  of  which  Califor 
nia  was  admitted  as  a  free  State ;  while  two  others,  organizing 
the  Territories  of  New  Mexico  and  Utah,  exposed  all  the  residue 
of  the  recently-acquired  territory  to  the  invasion  of  slavery. 


APPEAL  OF  INDEPENDENT  DEMOCRATS.  145 

"  These  acts  were  never  supposed  to  abrogate  or  touch  the 
existing  exclusion  of  slavery  from  what  is  now  called  Nebraska. 
They  applied  to  the  territory  acquired  from  Mexico,  and  to  that 
only.  They  were  intended  as  a  settlement  of  the  controversy 
growing  out  of  that  acquisition,  and  of  that  controversy  only. 
They  must  stand  or  fall  by  their  own  merits. 

"  The  statesmen  whose  powerful  support  carried  the  Utah 
and  New  Mexico  acts  never  dreamed  that  their  provisions  would 
be  ever  applied  to  Nebraska.  Even  at  the  last  session  of  Con 
gress,  Mr.  Atchison,  of  Missouri,  in  a  speech  in  favor  of  taking 
up  the  former  Nebraska  Bill,  on  the  morning  of  the  4th  of 
March,  1853,  said :  '  It  is  evident  that  the  Missouri  Compromise 
cannot  be  repealed.  So  far  as  that  question  is  concerned,  we 
might  as  well  agree  to  the  admission  of  this  Territory  now  as 
next  year,  or  five  or  ten  years  hence.'  These  words  would  not 
have  fallen  from  this  watchful  guardian  of  slavery  had  he  sup 
posed  that  this  Territory  was  embraced  "by  the  pro-slavery  pro 
visions  of  the  Compromise  Acts.  This  pretension  had  not  then 
been  set  up.  It  is  a  palpable  after-thought. 

"  The  Compromise  Acts  themselves  refute  this  pretension. 
In  the  third  article  of  the  second  section  of  the  joint  resolution 
for  annexing  Texas  to  the  United  States,  it  is  expressly  declared 
that,  '  in  such  State  or  States  as  shall  be  formed  out  of  such  ter 
ritory  north  of  said  Missouri  Compromise  line,  slavery  or  invol 
untary  servitude,  except  for  crime,  shall  be  prohibited ; '  and  in 
the  act  for  organizing  New  Mexico  and  settling  the  boundary  of 
Texas,  a  proviso  was  incorporated,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Mason,  of 
Virginia,  which  distinctly  preserves  this  prohibition,  and  flouts 
the  barefaced  pretension  that  all  the  territory  of  the  United 
States,  whether  south  or  north  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line, 
is  to  be  open  to  slavery.  It  is  as  follows:  'Provided,  that 
nothing  herein  contained  shall  be  construed  to  impair  or  qualify 
any  thing  contained  in  the  third  article  of  the  second  section  of 
the  joint  resolution  for  annexing  Texas  to  the  United  States, 
approved  March  1,  1845,  either  as  regards  the  number  of  States 
that  may  hereafter  be  formed  out  of  the  State  of  Texas  or  other 
wise.' 

"  Here  is  proof  beyond  controversy  that  the  principle  of  the 
Missouri  act  prohibiting  slavery  north  of  36°  30',  far  from  being 
10 


146  I<IFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

abrogated  by  the  Compromise  Acts,  is  expressly  affirmed ;  and 
that  the  proposed  repeal  of  this  prohibition,  instead  of  being  an 
affirmation  of  the  Compromise  Acts,  is  a  repeal  of  a  very  prom 
inent  provision  of  the  most  important  act  of  the  series.  It  is 
solemnly  declared  in  the  very  Compromise  Acts,  '  that  nothing 
herein  contained  shall  le  construed  to  impair  or  qualify '  the 
prohibition  of  slavery  north  of  36°  30' ;  and  yet,  in  the  face  of 
this  declaration,  that  sacred  prohibition  is  said  to  be  overthrown. 
Can  presumption  further  go  ?  To  all  who,  in  any  way,  lean 
upon  these  compromises,  we  commend  this  exposition. 

"  The  pretenses,  therefore,  that  the  territory  covered  by  the 
positive  prohibition  of  1820,  sustains  a  similar  relation  to  slavery 
with  that  acquired  from  Mexico,  covered  by  no  prohibition  ex 
cept  that  of  disputed  constitutional  or  Mexican  law,  and  that  the 
Compromises  of  1850  require  the  incorporation  of  the  pro-slavery 
clauses  of  the  Utah  and  New  Mexico  Bill  in  the  Nebraska  act, 
are  mere  inventions,  designed  to  cover  up  from  public  reprehen 
sion  meditated  bad  faith.  "Were  he  living  now,  no  one  would 
be  more  forward,  more  eloquent,  or  more  indignant  in  his  denun 
ciation  of  that  bad  faith,  than  Henry  Clay,  the  foremost  cham 
pion  of  both  compromises. 

"  In  1820  the  slave  States  said  to  the  free  States :  <  Admit 
Missouri  with  slavery,  and  refrain  from  positive  exclusion  south 
of  36°  30',  and  we  will  join  you  in  perpetual  prohibition  north 
of  that  line.'  The  free  States  consented.  In  1854  the  slave 
States  say  to  the  free  States :  '  Missouri  is  admitted ;  no  prohi 
bition  south  of  36°  30'  has  been  attempted ;  we  have  received 
the  full  consideration  of  our  agreement ;  no  more  is  to  be  gained 
by  adherence  to  it  on  our  part ;  we  therefore  propose  to  cancel 
the  compact.'  If  this  is  not  Punic  faith,  what  is  ?  Not  without 
the  deepest  dishonor  and  crime  can  the  free  States  acquiesce  in 
the  demand. 

"We  confess  our  total  inability  properly  to  delineate  the 
character  or  describe  the  consequences  of  this  measure.  Lan 
guage  fails  to  express  the  sentiments  of  indignation  and  abhor 
rence  which  it  inspires;  and  no  vision  less  penetrating  and 
comprehensive  than  that  of  the  All-Seeing  can  reach  its  evil 
issues.  .  .  . 

"  We  appeal  to  the  people.     We  warn  you  that  the  dearest 


APPEAL  OF  INDEPENDENT  DEMOCRATS.  147 

interests  of  freedom  and  the  Union  are  in  imminent  peril.  Dem 
agogues  may  tell  you  that  the  Union  can  be  maintained  only  by 
submitting  to  the  demands  of  slavery.  We  tell  you  that  the 
Union  can  only  be  maintained  by  the  full  recognition  of  the  just 
claims  of  freedom  and  man.  The  Union  was  formed  to  estab 
lish  justice  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty.  When  it  fails  to 
accomplish  these  ends  it  will  be  worthless,  and  when  it  becomes 
worthless  it  cannot  long  endure. 

"  We  entreat  you  to  be  mindful  of  that  fundamental  maxim 
of  Democracy — EQUAL  EIGHTS  AND  EXACT  JUSTICE  FOB  ALL  MEN. 
Do  not  submit  to  become  agents  in  extending  legalized  oppres 
sion  and  systematized  injustice  over  a  vast  territory  yet  exempt 
from  these  terrible  evils. 

"  We  implore  Christians  and  Christian  ministers  to  interpose. 
Their  divine  religion  requires  them  to  behold  in  every  man  a 
brother,  and  to  labor  for  the  advancement  and  regeneration  of 
the  human  race. 

"  Whatever  apologies  may  be  offered  for  the  toleration  of 
slavery  in  the  States,  none  can  be  offered  for  its  extension  into 
Territories  where  it  does  not  exist,  and  where  that  -exten 
sion  involves  the  repeal  of  ancient  law  and  the  violation  of 
solemn  compact.  Let  all  protest,  earnestly  and  emphatically, 
by  correspondence,  through  the  press,  by  memorials,  by  reso 
lutions  of  public  meetings  and  legislative  bodies,  and  in  what 
ever  other  mode  may  seem  expedient,  against  this  enormous 
crime. 

"  For  ourselves,  we  shall  resist  it  by  speech  and  vote,  and 
with  all  the  abilities  which  God  has  given  us.  Even  if  overcome 
in  the  impending  struggle,  we  shall  not  submit.  We  shall  go 
home  to  our  constituents,  erect  anew  the  standard  of  freed6m, 
and  call  on  the  people  to  come  to  the  rescue  of  the  country  from 
the  domination  of  slavery.  We  will  not  despair ;  for  the  cause 
of  human  freedom  is  the  cause  of  God." 

The  appeal  was  signed  by  S.  P.  Chase,  Senator  from  Ohio ; 
Charles  Sumner,  Senator  from  Massachusetts ;  J.  R.  Giddings 
and  Edward  Wade,  Representatives  from  Ohio ;  Gerritt  Smith, 
Representative  from  New  York ;  Alexander  De  Witt,  Repre 
sentative  from  Massachusetts.  It  was  printed  in  Washington 
and  New  York  papers  on  the  24th  and  25th  of  January,  and 


148  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

within  a  fortnight  was  reprinted  in  most  of  the  newspapers 
throughout  the  free  States. 

The  effect  of  the  appeal  was  instant.  Its  powerful  and  sol 
emn  language,  coupled  with  the  magnitude  of  the  subject  to 
which  it  called  the  public  attention,  created  in  the  North  a  pro 
found  agitation.  Its  warnings  were  felt  to  be  warranted  by  the 
occasion  which  produced  them,  and  every  where  preparation  be 
gan  with  a  view  to  manifest  to  Congress  the  popular  judgment 
against  the  proposed  repeal.  Opposition  to  the  measure  was  con 
fined  to  no  party,  to  no  State,  to  no  part  of  a  State,  but  pervaded 
the  entire  Northern  people ;  and  but  for  the  prodigious  influ 
ence  of  party  organization  and  discipline,  joined  with  an  exten 
sive  patronage  of  offices,  all  of  which  were  speedily  and  energeti 
cally  called  into  operation,  the  uprising  might  have  been  effec 
tive  against  the  repeal. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

MR.  DOUGLAS   DENOUNCES  THE  APPEAL  OF  THE  INDEPENDENT  DEM 
OCRATS — DEFENDS   THE   "PRINCIPLE"    OF    HIS   NEBRASKA  BILL 

AND  ALLEGES  THAT  THE  LEGISLATION  OF   1850   SUPERSEDED 

THE  MISSOURI  RESTRICTION — ME.  CHASE  DENIES  THE  DOCTRINE 

OF    SUPERSEDURE HIS    SPEECH — ACTION    OF    THE    SENATE    ON 

THE    QUESTION    OF    SUPEESEDURE — MR.    CHASE    SEEKS    TO    DIS 
COVER,  BY  IMPORTANT   AMENDMENTS,  THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF 

THE   BILL ITS    REAL    PRINCIPLE    DEVELOPED THE    AGITATION 

IN    THE    NORTH PASSAGE    OF    THE    BILL ANECDOTE    OF    MR. 

CHASE. 

MR.  DOUGLAS  came  into  the  Senate  on  the  morning  of 
the  30th  of  January,  laboring  under  much  angry  excite 
ment.  He  had  read  the  appeal  of  the  Independent  Democrats, 
and  at  once  denounced  both  it  and  its  authors  with  indignant 
bitterness.  He  stigmatized  statements  it  contained  as  "base 
falsehoods."  He  said  material  facts  of  history  had  been  sup 
pressed,  and  that  other  facts  had  been  misstated  and  misrepre 
sented.  He  called  Chase  and  Sumner  "  abolition  confederates 
in  slander,"  "pure,  unmitigated,  unadulterated  abolitionists," 
who  wished  a.  renewal  of  the  slavery  agitation,  and  who  sought 
by  this  appeal  to  win  "  tender-footed  Democrats  "  into  the  sup 
port  of  their  "  plot."  He  branded  the  already-prevailing  excite 
ment  as  an  "abolition  tornado,  which  would  again  put  the 
country  in  peril."  He  elaborated  his  views  upon  the  vital  prin 
ciple  of  the  Nebraska  Bill ;  it  was  that,  he  said,  upon  which 
rested  the  Compromise  of  1850 ;  "  the  great  principle  of  self- 
government  ;  the  right  of  the  people  to  decide  the  question  of 


150  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CEASE. 

tlieir  domestic  institutions  for  themselves,  subject  only  to  such 
limitations  and  restrictions  as  are  imposed  by  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States."  He  said  that  the  object  of  the  Com 
promise  of  1850  was  to  establish  certain  great  principles,  appli 
cable  to  all  the  unorganized  territory  of  the  country,  which 
would  avoid  the  slavery  agitation  for  all  time  to  come.  He 
denied  that  that  compromise  was  a  mere  temporary  expedient, 
applicable  only  to  Utah  and  New  Mexico,  which  left  the  country 
entirely  at  sea  in  the  future.  If  it  was  an  expedient  merely, 
then  Webster,  Clay  and  Cass  had  palmed  upon  the  people  an 
atrocious  fraud.  But  he  held  that  there  had  been,  by  the  legis 
lation  of  1850,  an  express  annulment  of  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise,  and  that  as  to  all  unorganized  Territories  it  was  superseded 
by  that  legislation,  and  that  Congress  was  bound  to  apply  the 
principle  it  established  in  the  organization  of  all  existing  Terri 
tories,  and  in  all  that  might  be  acquired  in  future.  "  If  this  prin 
ciple  is  right,"  he  said,  "  the  bill  is  right.  If  the  principle  is 
wrong,  the  bill  is  wrong.  .  .  .  The  legal  effect  of  the  bill,  if  it  be 
passed,  is  neither  to  legislate  slavery  into  the  Territories  nor  out 
of  them,  but  to  leave  the  people  free  to  do  as  they  please,  under  the 
provisions  and  subject  to  the  limitations  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.  And  why,"  he  asked,  "  shall  not  this  principle 
prevail  ?  Why  should  any  man,  North  or  South,  object  to  it  ? " 
He  announced  his  intention  to  stand  by  it,  not  merely  because 
he  was  bound  to  it  by  the  Baltimore  platform  of  1852,  but  be 
cause  of  a  higher  and  more  solemn  obligation,  to  which  the 
Democracy  stood  pledged  by  the  love  and  affection  they  bore  to 
the  great  principle  of  free  institutions,  which  lies  at  the  basis  of 
the  Democratic  creed,  and  gives  to  every  political  community 
the  right  to  govern  itself  in  obedience  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
country. 

Mr.  Chase  said  he  reaffirmed  every  word  and  syllable  in  the 
appeal,  distinctly  and  emphatically,  and  that  at  a  future  day 
he  would  demonstrate  that  the  Missouri  prohibition  had  not 
been  repealed  by  the  compromise  measures  of  1850 ;  that  not 
a  single  word  had  been  uttered  in  the  Senate-chamber,  nor  in 
the  House  of  Representatives,  indicating  any  idea  or  purpose, 
on  the  part  of  anybody,  that  those  measures  were  to  operate 
as  a  repeal,  and  "  that  when  the  Senator  vouches  the  authority 


MISSOURI  COMPROMISE— REPEAL  LEGISLATION.  151 

of  Clay  and  "Webster  to  sustain  him,  lie  vouches  authorities 
which  would  rebuke  him,  could  those  statesmen  speak  from 
their  graves." 

Mr.  Sumner  added  that  the  language  of  the  appeal  was 
strong,  but  no  stronger  than  the  exigency  required.  The  pro 
posed  measure,  which  reversed  the  time-honored  policy  of  our 
fathers  in  the  restriction  of  slavery,  could  not  justly  be  described 
in  common  language.  He  denounced  it  as  "  a  soulless,  eyeless 
monster — horrid,  unshapely  and  vast." 

On  the  3d  of  February  Mr.  Chase  proceeded  to  vindicate  the 
statements  contained  in  the  appeal.  He  declared  the  averment 
in  the  substitute  reported  by  Mr.  Douglas  on  the  23d  of  Janu 
ary,  to  the  effect  that  the  Missouri  prohibition  had  been  "  super 
seded  by  the  principles  of  the  legislation  of  1850,  commonly 
called  the  compromise  measures,"  to  be  "  untrue  in  fact  and 
without  foundation  in  history."  He  moved — for  that  reason — 
to  strike  it  out  of  the  bill,  and  in  support  of  his  motion,  reviewed 
the  history  both  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  and  the  compro 
mise  measures  of  1850.  "When  the  measures  of  1850  were 
before  Congress,"  he  asked,  "  when  the  questions  involved  in 
them  were  discussed  from  day  to  day,  from  week  to  week,  from 
month  to  month,  in  this  Senate-chamber,  who  ever  heard  that 
the  Missouri  prohibition  was  to  be  superseded  ?  "What  man,  at 
what  time,  in  what  speech,  ever  suggested  that  the  acts  of  that 
year  were  to  affect  the  Missouri  Compromise  ?  The  Senator 
from  Illinois  the  other  day  invoked  the  authority  of  Henry 
Clay — that  departed  statesman,  in  respect  to  whom,  whatever 
may  be  the  differences  of  political  opinion,  none  question  that, 
among  the  great  men  of  this  country,  he  stood  proudly  eminent. 
Did  he,  in  the  report  made  by  him  as  chairman  of  the  Committee 
of  Thirteen,  or  in  any  speech  in  support  of  the  Compromise  Acts, 
or  in  any  conversation  in  the  committee,  or  out  of  the  committee, 
ever  hint  at  this  doctrine  of  supersedure  ?  Did  any  supporter, 
or  any  opponent  of  the  Compromise  Acts,  ever  vindicate  or  con 
demn  them  upon  the  ground  that  the  Missouri  prohibition  would 
be  affected  by  them?  Well,  sir,  the  Compromise  Acts  were 
passed.  They  were  denounced  North  and  South.  Did  any  de 
fender  of  them  at  the  South  ever  justify  his  support  of  them 
upon  the  ground  that  the  South  had  obtained  through  them  the. 


152  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

repeal  of  the  Missouri  prohibition  ?  Did  any  objector  to  them 
at  the  North  ever  suggest  as  a  ground  of  condemnation  that  that 
prohibition  was  swept  away  by  them  ?  No,  sir !  No  man,  North 
or  South,  during  the  whole  of  the  discussion  of  those  acts  here,  or 
in  that  other  discussion  which  followed  their  enactment  through 
out  the  country,  ever  intimated  any  such  opinion."  He  re 
viewed  the  history  of  the  pending  bill  in  its  several  phases,  and 
said  the  doctrine  of  supersedure  was  no  older  than  the  23d  of 
January.  He  asked  Mr.  Mason,  of  Virginia,  whether,  at  any 
time  before  that  date,  he  had  ever  heard  such  a  proposition 
stated  or  maintained  by  anybody  anywhere?  Mr.  Mason  re 
mained  silent.  He  appealed  to  General  Cass,  who  had  been 
one  of  the  Committee  of  Thirteen  which  in  1850  had  reported 
the  compromise  measures,  whether  in  that  committee  or  else 
where,  any  syllable  was  uttered  which  indicated  any  purpose  to 
apply  the  principles  of  those  measures  to  any  other  Territories 
than  those  organized  under  them  ?  General  Cass  remained  silent 
also. 

Mr.  Chase  said,  near  the  conclusion  of  his  speech,  that  he  had 
proved  the  averment  he  proposed  to  strike  out  of  the  bill,  to  be 
untrue.  "  Senators,  will  you  unite  in  a  statement  which  you 
know  to  be  contradicted  by  the  history  of  the  country  ?  Will 
you  incorporate  into  a  public  statute  an  affirmation  which  is  con 
tradicted  by  every  event  which  attended  or  followed  the  adop 
tion  of  the  Compromise  Acts  ?  "Will  you  here,  acting  under  your 
high  responsibility  as  Senators  of  the  States,  assert  as  fact,  by  a 
solemn  vote,  that  which  the  personal  recollection  of  every  Senator 
who  was  here  during  the  discussion  of  those  Compromise  Acts 
disproves  ? "  But  if  it  must  be  done,  he  said,  he  wished  to  see 
it  done  openly  and  boldly,  and  not  by  indirection. 

"  But  who,"  he  asked,  "  who  is  responsible  for  this  renewal  of 
strife  and  controversy?  Not  we,  for  we  have  introduced  no 
question  of  territorial  slavery  into  Congress — not  we,  who  are 
denounced  as  agitators  and  factionists.  No,  sir:  the  quietists 
and  the  finalists  have  become  agitators ;  they  who  told  us  that 
all  agitation  was  quieted,  and  that  the  resolutions  of  the  political 
conventions  had  put  a  final  period  to  the  discussion  of  slavery. 

"  This  will  not  escape  the  observation  of  the  country.  It  is 
SLAVERY  that  renews  the  strife.  It  is  slavery  that  again  wants 


MISSOUEI  COMPROMISE  LEGISLATION.  153 

room.  It  is  slavery,  with  its  insatiate  demands  for  more  slave 
territory  and  more  slave  States." 

Mr.  Chase  was  two  hours  and  a  half  in  the  delivery  of  this 
great  argument,  and  so  completely  and  overwhelmingly  did  he 
refute  the  doctrine  of  supersedure,  that  no  Senator  attempted 
either  reply  or  defense.  His  amendment  was  rejected,  how 
ever,  by  thirty  to  thirteen.  But  although  the  friends  of  repeal 
had  voted  down  his  amendment,  they  felt  the  averment  in  the 
bill  to  be  too  paltry  for  successful  defense  before  the  people. 
The  inexorable  necessity  remained,  nevertheless,  that  some  ade 
quate  reason  should  be  assigned  for  the  abrogation  of  the  pro 
hibition.  Mr.  Douglas  proposed  to  substitute  a  declaration  that 
the  Missouri  act  was  inconsistent  with  the  principles  of  the  legis 
lation  of  1850,  commonly  called  the  compromise  measures.  This 
was  a  less  hazardous  and  objectionable  method  of  statement ; 
although,  according  to  Mr.  Douglas,  it  conveyed  the  "  express 
idea  of  the  original  words  " — and  simply  "  made  it  plainer." 

Accordingly  on  the  7th  of  February  that  Senator  introduced 
an  amendment,  which  alleged  that  the  Missouri  prohibition, 
"  being  inconsistent  with  the  principles  of  non-intervention  by 
Congress  with  slavery  in  the  Territories,  as  recognized  by  the 
legislation  of  1850,  commonly  called  the  compromise  measures, 
is  hereby  declared  inoperative  and  void ;  it  being  the  true  intent 
and  meaning  of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  Ter 
ritory  or  State,  or  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the 
people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  own 
domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States."  This  was  adopted  on  the 
15th  of  February,  by  thirty-five  to  ten  ;  Mr.  Chase  remarking, 
however,  that  he  did  not  regard  this  statement  as  any  truer  in 
fact  than  that  for  which  it  was  a  substitute.  For  his  own  part, 
he  said,  he  would  altogether  prefer  to  see  the  measure  stripped 
of  excuses. 

But  he  called  the  attention  of  the  Senate  to  a  weightier  mat 
ter.  The  alleged  principle  of  the  bill  was,  that  the  people  of 
the  Territory  were  to  be  left  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate 
their  own  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  It  was  of  the  first  im 
portance  to  ascertain  what  was  meant  by  this  phrase — "  subject 


154:  LIFE  OF  SALMON  POKTLAND  CHASE. 

only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States"  There  was  a 
wide  difference  of  opinion  among  Senators  as  to  what  the  consti 
tutional  limitations  and  restrictions  really  were  Some  Senators 
thought  the  Constitution  had  no  operation  in  the  Territories,  ex 
cept  by  express  enactment  of  Congress.  Others  thought  it  ex 
tended  over  the  Territories  from  the  moment  of  their  acquisition. 
Some  maintained  that  the  Constitution,  properly  interpreted, 
prevented  the  existence  of  slavery  in  the  Territories  altogether, 
and  made  it  impossible  for  a  territorial  Legislature  to  introduce 
it  by  any  valid  enactment.  Others  contended  that  under  it,  the 
territorial  Legislature  could  not  exclude  slavery.  He  sought 
to  exclude  all  doubt  on  the  subject,  and  moved  that  after  the 
words  of  the  amendment  just  made  should  be  added  these — 
"  under  which  the  people  of  the  Territory,  through  their  appro 
priate  representatives,  may,  if  they  see  fit,  prohibit  the  existence 
of  slavery  therein."  His  object  was  to  get  the  sense  of  the 
Senate  upon  the  vital  question,  whether,  subject  to  the  limita 
tions  of  the  Constitution,  the  people  of  the  Territory,  acting 
through  their  proper  representatives,  in  the  territorial  Legislature, 
COTJLD  protect  themselves  against  slavery  by  prohibiting  it.  The 
operation  of  this  amendment,  if  adopted,  would  be  very  simple : 
it  asserted  distinctly  and  unequivocally  the  principle  of  non-in 
tervention  which  the  bill  professed ;  that  under  it,  in  the  judg 
ment  of  Congress,  the  people  of  the  Territory  might  utterly  ex 
clude  slavery  if  they  should  choose  to  do  so.  Of  course  there 
could  be  no  real  objection  to  this  amendment,  if  the  principle  of 
the  bill 1  was  a  genuine  non-intervention ;  but  the  long  and  some 
what  stormy  debate  which  followed,  illustrated  clearly  enough 
that  in  the  judgment  of  some  Senators,  at  least,  the  bill  was  ex 
pected  to  operate  a  very  potent  kind  of  intervention  in  behalf 
of  slavery.  The  amendment  was  rejected  by  the  emphatic  vote 
of  thirty-six  nays  to  ten  in  the  affirmative. 

1  In  order  still  further  to  illustrate  the  character  of  the  alleged  principle  of  the 
bill — non-intervention  with  the  domestic  affairs  of  the  States  and  Territories — Mr. 
Chase  offered  another  amendment,  the  effect  of  which  would  be,  if  adopted,  to  enable 
the  people  of  the  Territory  to  elect  their  own  Governor,  judges  of  courts,  and  other 
State  officers,  and  members  also  of  the  territorial  Legislature.  But  the  Senate  was 
not  fifteen  minutes  in  voting  it  down,  and  almost  as  summarily  rejected  another,  in 
tended  to  restore  the  boundaries  of  Nebraska  as  stated  in  the  original  bill,  and 
leave  but  one  Government  therein  instead  of  two. 


REPEAL  OF  MISSOURI  COMPROMISE.  155 

Pending  the  debate  upon  the  bill  in  the  Senate,  the  agita 
tion  in  the  North  had  widened  and  deepened,  until  it  pervaded 
all  ranks  and  classes  and  largely  involved  both  political  parties. 
It  exhibited  itself  in  many  public  meetings  ;  in  numberless  peti 
tions  signed  by  both  men  and  women  ;  in  remonstrances  by  re 
ligious  bodies ;  in  the  denunciations  of  press  and  pulpit ;  in  re 
solves  of  State  Legislatures.  The  most  remarkable  protest  was 
that  presented  by  Mr.  Everett,  of  Massachusetts,1  which  bore  the 
signatures  of  three  thousand  and  fifty  clergymen  of  the  New 
England  States.  It  ran  in  these  impressive  words  :  "  The  under 
signed,  clergymen  of  different  religious  denominations  in  New 
England,  hereby,  IN  THE  NAME  OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD  and  in  His 
presence,  do  solemnly  protest  against  the  passage  of  what  is 
known  as  the  Nebraska  Bill,  or  any  repeal  or  modification  of 
the  existing  legal  prohibitions  of  slavery  in  that  part  of  our 
national  domain  which  it  is  proposed  to  organize  into  the  Terri 
tories  of  Nebraska  and  Kansas.  We  protest  against  it  as  a  great 
moral  wrong,  as  a  breach  of  faith  eminently  unjust  to  the  moral 
principles  of  the  community,  and  subversive  of  all  confidence  in 
national  engagements ;  as  a  measure  full  of  danger  to  the  peace 
and  even  to  the  existence  of  our  beloved  Union,  and  exposing 
us  to  the  righteous  judgments  of  the  Almighty." 

The  bill  was  pressed  forward  to  its  passage,  however,  although 
the  universal  and  continually  growing  excitement  evidently  made 
a  deep  impression  upon  the  minds  of  its  leading  friends  in  Con 
gress.  Mr.  Douglas  showed  his  consciousness  of  it  by  repeated 
observations  in  the  course  of  the  debate,  most  of  them  in  hot, 
imperious  temper.  But  the  bill  carried  his  political  fortunes,  as 
he  believed,  and  with  a  pertinacious  courage  and  defiance  alike 
of  the  counsels  of  friends  and  the  threats  of  enemies,  he  bore  it 
triumphantly  through. 

It  passed  the  Senate  at  about  five  o'clock  on  the  morning  of 
the  4th  of  March,  1854,  at  the  close  of  a  session  of  seventeen 
hours'  duration,  by  a  vote  of  thirty-seven  to  fourteen.  A  South 
ern  Senator — Houston,  of  Texas — closed  the  debate  by  a  solemn 
protest  and  warning  against  it.  The  scene  in  the  Senate,  at  this 
momentous  hour,  was  full  of  intense  and  suppressed  excitement. 
It  was  one  of  triumph  and  glory  for  the  friends  of  the  measure, 

3  It  was  presented,  however,  after  the  bill  had  passed  the  Senate. 


156  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

and  their  exultation  found  vent  in  verbal  congratulation  within 
the  walls  of  the  Capitol,  and  by  the  firing  of  cannon  without 
them,  but  in  the  hearing  of  those  whose  votes  had  decided  the 
tremendous  issue.  The  opponents  of  the  bill  saw  in  its  passage 
the  great  opportunity  of  freedom,  and  the  grief  of  present  de 
feat  was  tempered  by  a  belief  that  it  would  prove  an  effective 
instrument  for  the  final  overthrow  of  the  slave-power. 

It  was  yet  dark  when  the  lights  were  turned  out  in  the  Senate- 
chamber,  and  both  Senators  and  spectators  departed  for  their 
homes.  Mr.  Chase  and  Mr.  Sumner  walked  down  the  steps  of 
the  Capitol  together.  The  thunder  of  the  cannon  of  triumphant 
slavery  at  steady  intervals  smote  upon  their  ears.  "  They  cele 
brate  a  present  victory,"  said  Mr.  Chase,  "  but  the  echoes  they 
awake  will  never  rest  till  slavery  itself  shall  die." 

The  bill  was  sent  to  the  House,  but  was  not  taken  up  in 
that  body  for  more  than  two  months.  It  was  finally  passed 
under  circumstances  of  great  disorder  and  excitement,  on  the 
20th  of  May,  by  one  hundred  and  thirteen  votes  to  one  hun 
dred  against  it.  Party  lines  among  Southern  members  were 
almost  wholly  lost  in  it  ssupport.  Forty-four  Northern  Demo 
crats  voted  for  the  bill ;  forty-four  Northern  Democrats  voted 
against  it,  and  forty-four  Northern  "Whigs  voted  against  and  no 
Northern  "Whig  for  it.  Seven  Southern  Whigs  and  two  Dem 
ocrats  voted  against  it;  one  of  the  latter  was  Thomas  H. 
Benton. 

The  first  session  of  the  Thirty-third  Congress  began  on  the 
5th  of  December,  1853,  and  ended  on  the  7th  of  August,  1854. 
It  opened  in  the  midst  of  peace  and  prosperity ;  it  closed  in  the 
midst  of  a  more  universal  and  dangerous  slavery  agitation  than 
was  ever  before  known  in  the  history  of  the  American  people. 


NOTE  TO   CHAPTER  XVIIL 

Extracts  from  a  Letter  of  Mr.  Chase  to  John  Paul. 

"WASHINGTON,  December  28, 1S54. 

" .  .  .  .  My  views  of  the  matters  referred  to  in  your  last  letter  are  clear 
and  may  be  easily  stated. 

"  With  me  opposition  to  nationalized  slaveholding  and  slave-catching 
and  to  slavery  domination  in  our  national  Government,  is  a  simple  appli- 


LETTER  TO  JOHN  PAUL.  157 

cation  of  Democratic  principle.  At  the  present  moment  I  regard  the  ap 
plication  of  that  principle  as  of  paramount  importance. 

"  I  can  therefore  be  a  member  of  no  party  or  political  organization 
which,  in  a  free  State,  ignores  the  slavery  question,  or  which  reduces  it  to 
a  secondary  consideration.  Nor  can  I  belong  to  any  party  which  is  anti 
democratic  in  its  character. 

"  The  rule  which  guides  my  political  action  is  very  simple. 

"  For  years  past  slavery  has  controlled  the  action  of  the  old  political 
parties.  No  matter  which  of  them  has  obtained  the  control  of  the  Gov 
ernment,  its  administration  has  been,  of  necessity,  pro-slavery.  Under 
Polk,  Texas  was  annexed  with  slavery.  Under  Fillmore,  the  fugitive 
slave  act  was  passed.  Under  Pierce,  the  Missouri  prohibition  has  been 
repealed.  Not  one  of  these  measures  could  have  been  carried  without  the 
active  aid  of  the  existing  Administration. 

"  While  the  ascendant  party  has  been  thus  constantly  pro-slavery,  the 
existence  of  a  powerful  independent  political  organization  avowedly  anti- 
slavery  has  naturally  had  great  influence  upon  the  action  of  the  party  in 
opposition.  The  minority  party  in  the  free  States  has  been  antislavery  at 
least  so  far  as  continued  connection  with  a  pro-slavery  wing  would  permit. 
Thus  when  the  old  Democratic  party  succeeded  under  Polk,  the  old  Whig 
party,  being  in  the  minority,  became  decidedly  antislavery  in  profession,  and 
to  some  extent  in  action.  When  the  Whig  party  in  its  turn  succeeded 
under  Taylor,  the  old  Democratic  party  being  in  the  minority,  became  just 
as  antislavery  in  profession  and  action  as  the  Whigs  had  been  in  like  cir 
cumstances.  When  the  Old-line  Democracy  again  succeeded  under  Pierce, 
the  Whigs  again  became  antislavery. 

"  In  each  of  these  successive  periods  the  minority,  whatever  its  political 
designation,  has  been  ready  to  cooperate  with  the  independent  Antislavery 
party.  Such  cooperations  have  actually  taken  place.  They  have  been 
more  marked  in  their  character  and  more  frequent  in  their  occurrence  as 
the  strength  of  the  independent  opposition  to  slavery  has  increased. 
Hence  the  cooperation  between  the  antislavery  Independents  and  the 
Whigs  which  elected  Mr.  Hale  to  the  Senate  in  1841.  Hence  too,  the  coop 
eration  between  the  antislavery  Independents  and  the  Democrats  which 
elected  Mr.  Sumner  and  myself  in  1851  and  1849.  Hence,  finally,  those 
cooperations  between  the  antislavery  Independents  and  the  Whigs  which 
have  elected  Mr.  Gillette  and  Mr.  Brainard  in  1854. 

"  These  cooperations  between  minorities  opposed  to  an  accidental  ma 
jority  are  inevitable ;  and,  when  no  principle  is  surrendered  or  hazarded, 
are  free  from  all  reasonable  objection.  Thus  far  they  have  not  only 
marked  but  accelerated  the  prevalence  of  antislavery  sentiment  and  prin 
ciple. 

"  As  an  Independent  Democrat,  recognizing  the  importance  of  consist 
ent  antislavery  action,  I  have  not  hesitated  to  adopt  the  rule  which  these 
facts  suggest. 

"I  have  cooperated  and  will  cheerfully  cooperate  with  any  of  my  fel 
low-citizens  whom  circumstances  have  disposed  or  may  dispose  to  coop 
erate  with  me  in  the  advancement  of  the  antislavery  cause.  I  can  never 
yield  or  modify  my  principles ;  but  if  any  party  is  willing  to  vote  with 
me  for  men  of  my  organization  who  will  faithfully  carry  them  out  ^  in 
legislative,  judicial  and  executive  action,  I  am  willing  to  vote  with 
men  of  theirs  who  will  do  the  same  or  will  not  oppose  the  doing  of  it  by 
others. 

"  Thus  in  the  recent  election  in  Ohio  I  entered  heartly  into  the  Peo 
ple's  movement,  which  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  cooperation  of 
Liberal  Democrats,  Independent  Democrats  and  Whigs  for  the  election  of 


158  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

reliable  slavery  prohibitionists  to  the  next  Congress  and  of  rebuking  the 
pro-slavery  action  of  the  Administration  party.  .  .  . 

"  For  one  I  wish  to  see  this  People's  movement  go  on  in  the  liberal 
spirit  which  has  thus  far  characterized  it.  But  if  it  is  to  be  understood 
that  the  Know-Nothings  who  participated  in  it  will  henceforth  ignore  the 
antislavery  element  or  support  no  candidates  who  are  not  members  of  their 
order,  or  whose  nominations  are  not  dictated  by  them,  those  who  regard 
the  slavery  question  as  of  paramount  importance  and  whose  principles  will 
not  allow  them  to  become  members  of  Know-Nothing  associations,  must 
of  necessity  assume  an  antagonistic  position.  If  this  conflict  shall  arise,  it 
is  plain  that  the  People's  movement  cannot  go  on  or  must  go  on  without 
the  Know-Nothing  cooperation.  It  becomes  the  friends  of  Liberty  to  be 
prepared  for  every  event. 

"  Let  it  be  granted  that  in  the  action  of  some  foreigners  there  has  been 
something  justly  censurable  and  calculated  to  provoke  the  hostility  which 
has  embodied  itself  in  the  Know-Nothing  organization;  still,  cannot  what 
is  wrong  in  that  action  be  remedied  without  resort  to  secret  political  or 
ganizations  ?  Is  it  right  to  punish  all  for  the  faults  of  some  ?  Can  anti- 
slavery  men,  especially,  join  in  the  indiscriminate  proscription  of  those 
Americans  of  foreign  birth  who  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  us  in  the 
anti-Nebraska  struggle  of  last  fall  ? 

"I  cannot  take  upon  myself  any  secret  political  obligations.  I  cannot% 
proscribe  men  on  account  of  their  birth.  I  cannot  make  religious  faith  a* 
political  test.  I  cannot  pretend  to  judge  those  who  think  and  act  other 
wise  than  I  do.  If  they  choose  to  condemn  me  because  I  cannot  in  these 
things  violate  the  political  maxims  which  have  governed  my  political  life 
hitherto,  I  must  content  myself  with  that  approval  of  my  own  conscience 
which  has  sustained  me  heretofore  under  severer  trials. 

"Your  kind  wishes  for  my  political  advancement  are  gratefully  ac 
knowledged.  There  are  some  reasons  why  such  an  indorsement  of  my 
political  course  as  you  suggest  would  be  very  gratifying.  But  hitherto  I 
have  never  sacrificed  or  compromised  any  political  principle,  and  I  cannot 
begin  now.  No  position  is  high  enough  to  tempt  me  from  the  plain  path 
in  which  my  sense  of  political  duty  requires  me  to  walk." 

Mr.  Chase  to  General  John  A.  Dix. 

u  WASHINGTON,  November  25,  1863. 

"  Your  kind  invitation  to  write  something  that  may  be  read  at  the 
breaking  of  ground  on  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  in  Nebraska,  found  me 
in  the  midst  of  engagements  so  exacting  that  it  has  been  impossible  to 
write  any  thing  worth  the  reading. 

"  I  could  not,  however,  omit  writing  altogether,  for  that  would  imply 
an  indifference  to  the  work  which  no  American  feels. 

"  It  is  among  my  most  pleasing  recollections  of  service  as  a  Senator 
from  Ohio,  that  the  first  practical  measure  looking  to  the  construction  of  a 
Pacific  Railroad,  which  received  the  sanction  of  Congress,  was  moved  by 
me.  That  measure  was  an  amendment  to  the  army  appropriation  bill, 
placing  at  the  disposal  of  the  Secretary  of  War  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand  dollars,  to  be  expended  in  surveys  and  explorations  of  routes  for  the 
road.  It  was  adopted  in  the  Senate  in  February,  1853,  and  was  subse 
quently  concurred  in  by  the  House.  Its  results  are  embodied  in  the  vol 
umes  known  as  the  Pacific  Railroad  Reports,  printed  by  order  of  Congress. 

u  It  is  another  pleasing  recollection  that  I  had  the  honor  in  March, 
1850,  of  presenting  and  commending  to  the  Senate  the  memorial  of  Dr. 
Pulte,  an  intelligent  physician  of  Cincinnati,  praying  that  measures  might 


LETTER  TO   GENERAL  DIX.  159 

be  taken  for  the  connection  of  New  York  with  London  by  extending  the 
existing  lines  of  telegraph  to  the  Pacific,  by  way  of  the  coast  and  Behring's 
Straits  through  Northern  Asia  to  St.  Petersburg — thus  forming  connec 
tions  with  the  lines  to  the  cities  of  Western  Europe. 

"  This  great  work  has  since  been  completed  to  the  Pacific  by  the  in 
domitable  energy  of  Hiram  Sibley,  a  private  citizen  of  New  York,  aided 
by  the  simple  promise  of  employment  and  compensation  by  the  Govern 
ment.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Pacific,  the  Russian  telegraph-line  from 
St.  Petersburg,  constructed  by  the  imperial  Government,  approaches  if  it 
has  not  already  reached,  the  Pacific ;  and  American  enterprise  is  earnestly 
enlisted  in  the  task — now  certain  to  be  accomplished — of  completing  the 
wonderful  work  which  the  Cincinnati  physician  suggested  more  than  thir 
teen  years  ago. 

"  Steam  moves  more  slowly  than  lightning.  The  progress  of  the  rail 
road  has  been  necessarily  slower  than  that  of  the  telegraph.  When  the 
surveys  and  explorations  for  a  route  had  been  partially  reported,  the  sub 
ject  of  the  railroad  was  again  brought  before  Congress  ;  and  I  had  some 
connection  with  it—now,  however,  of  a  less  pleasant,  though  still  signifi 
cant  character.  Solicitous  for  the  progress  of  the  work,  I  submitted  a  res 
olution  in  January,  1854,  instructing  the  Committee  on  Roads  and  Canals 
to  inquire  into  and  report  upon  the  construction  of  a  railroad  from  some 
point  on  the  western  lines  of  the  Western  States  to  some  point  on  the  east 
ern  line  of  California. 

"  On  the  motion  of  Mr.  Gwynn  the  reference  to  the  Committee  on  Roads 
and  Canals  was  stricken  out  and  the  whole  subject  referred  to  a  select  com 
mittee  of  nine  Senators,  from  which  committee  I  was  excluded — because  I 
then  held  about  the  same  relations  to  the  Democratic  party  on  the  subject 
of  slavery  as  the  War  Democrats  now  hold  on  the  question  of  the  rebellion. 

"  Mr.  Gwynn's  committee  reported  a  bill  which,  after  much  discussion 
and  sundry  amendments  passed  the  Senate  in  1855,  but  failing  to  receive 
the  sanction  of  the  House,  did  not  become  a  law. 

"  Nothing  further  of  importance  was  done  in  relation  to  the  Pacific 
Railroad  during  the  next  seven  years.  The  attention  of  the  country  was 
absorbed  by  other  questions  ;  and  it  remained  for  the  Thirty-seventh  Con 
gress  to  give  a  grand  proof  of  the  stability  of  the  republic  and  the  worth 
of  democratic-republican  institutions,  by  taking  up  this  great  measure, 
in  the  midst  of  our  terrible  civil  war,  and  framing  it  into  a  law.  The 
Thirty-seventh  Congress  will  be  forever  memorable  in  history  as  the  author 
of  many  acts  of  legislation  of  transcendant  importance  and  far-reaching 
consequences.  Among  these  great  acts  the  Pacific  Railroad  Bill  will 
remain  as  one  of  the  most  illustrious  monuments  of  the  wisdom  and  cour 
age  of  its  members. 

"  I  shall  not  attempt  any  discussion  of  its  importance  to  our  industry, 
our  commerce,  or  our  Union.  I  have  elsewhere  said  something  on  these 
themes ;  but  now  the  road  is  its  own  most  eloquent  advocate.  I  rejoice  in 
the  belief  that  under  your  charge  and  that  of  the  eminent  citizens  asso 
ciated  with  you,  it  will  go  steadily  forward  to  completion ;  and  vindicate, 
by  perfect  success,  the  most  sanguine  hopes  and  predictions  of  its  advo 
cates  and  promoters." 


CHAPTEE    XIX. 

PARTY  ACTION  IN  RELATION  TO  THE  NEBRASKA   BILL DIFFICULTY  OF 

OBTAINING  SIGNATURES  TO  THE  APPEAL  OF  THE  INDEPENDENT 
DEMOCRATS ATTEMPT  TO  CHANGE  THE  CURRENT  OF  PUBLIC  SEN 
TIMENT  THROUGH  KNOW-NOTHINGISM FAILURE  OF  THAT  AT 
TEMPT MR.  CHASE  RETIRES  FROM  THE  SENATE THE  STRUGGLE 

IN  KANSAS BRIEF  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  EARLIER    EVENTS    IN    THAT 

STRUGGLE STATE  OF  PARTIES  IN  OHIO ORGANIZATION    OF   THE 

REPUBLICAN  PARTY NOMINATION  OF  MR.  CHASE  FOR  GOV 
ERNOR HIS  SPEECH  OF  ACCEPTANCE CANVASS  OF  THE  STATE 

AND  HIS  ELECTION. 

~TTT~HEN  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  first  appeared  in  the  Sen- 
V  V  ate,  there  was  great  uncertainty  among  the  Whig  Sena 
tors  and  Representatives  as  to  the  course  they  ought  to  pursue. 
Nearly  the  whole  of  the  Southern  Whig  members  of  both 
Houses  went  over  to  the  support  of  the  Administration  upon  this 
question ;  in  the  Senate  there  was  but  one  exception,  and  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  there  were  but  seven  who  finally  voted 
against  the  bill.  The  dissolution  of  the  "Whig  party — largely 
accomplished  by  the  action  of  its  National  Convention  of  1852 
— and  inevitable  under  the  excitement  growing  out  of  the  Ne 
braska  act,  did  not  seem  so  clear  to  Northern  Whigs  in  Congress 
as  to  warrant  them  in  an  utter  abandonment  of  its  fortunes,  and 
although  most  of  them  approved  the  appeal  of  the  Independent 
Democrats — which  it  was  intended  by  its  authors  should  be 
signed  by  all  the  members  of  Congress  opposed  to  the  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  prohibition — they  refused  to  give  it  the  sanction  of 
their  names.  Even  Mr.  Seward  declined  to  sign  it.  It  was 


PARTY  ACTION  UPON  NEBRASKA  BILL.  161 

found  impossible  to  obtain  the  signatures  desired ;  and  it  was 
then  proposed  to  issue  it  with  the  names  only  of  the  Ohio  Sen 
ators  and  the  Ohio  Representatives  who  opposed  the  bill.  But 
even  this  was  impracticable.  Finding  any  thing  like  unanimity 
unattainable,  the  paper  was  signed  by  the  Independent  Demo 
crats  alone.  The  people  took  the  alarm,  and  their  potential  voice 
was  soon  heard  in  Congress.  The  alliance  of  the  Administration 
Senators  and  Representatives  with  substantially  the  whole  body 
of  the  Southern  AYhigs,  secured,  it  is  true,  the  passage  of  the 
bill — but  the  Senators  and  Representatives  who  voted  against 
it,  represented  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the  free  States.  It 
was  no  longer  doubtful  upon  what  ground  the  reorganization  of 
parties  would  take  place.  It  must  necessarily  find  its  only  bond 
of  union  in  opposition  to  the  extension  of  slavery. 

A  vain  attempt  was  made  to  turn  the  current  of  public  sen 
timent  into  other  channels  through  the  instrumentality  of  the 
"American"  or  "Know-Nothing"  organization.  This  was  a 
secret  society  based  chiefly  upon  opposition  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  though  a  large  part  of  its  leadership  was  much 
more  intensely  pro-slavery  than  anti-Catholic.  The  novelty  of 
its  methods  of  action,  and  a  measure  of  real  hostility  to  sup 
posed  inimical  foreign  influences  in  our  politics — joined  with 
other  motives — made  it  for  a  time  a  very  powerful  political  in 
strument.  During  the  brief  period  of  its  existence,  it  received 
into  its  lodges  a  considerable  majority  of  the  members  of  both 
the  "Whig  and  Democratic  parties,  and  was  a  stepping-stone  for 
many  voters  into  the  anti-Nebraska,  and  subsequently  the  Re 
publican  organization.  But  its  character  as  a  secret  political  so 
ciety,  bound  by  oaths  to  promote  certain  political  purposes,  made 
it  thoroughly  distasteful  to  the  sober  judgment  of  the  people ; 
nor  were  its  professed  objects  such  as  to  command  a  permanent 
support.  Its  first  National  Convention  was  broken  up  by  a 
division  upon  the  slavery  question,  and  it  promptly  and  utterly 
disappeared  from  political  contests.  The  Whig  party,  although 
it  made  a  struggle  in  some  States  at  the  fall  elections  of  1854, 
also  disappeared,  the  great  majority  of  its  members  going 
into  the  Know-Nothing,  and  afterward  into  the  Republican 
organization ;  and  some,  of  intense  pro-slavery  sentiments,  joined 
themselves  to  the  Democracy. 
11 


162  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Meantime  Mr.  Chase  had  been  superseded  in  the  Senate J  by 
Mr.  George  E.  Pugh,  Democrat,  who  was  chosen  his  successor  in 
a  Legislature  unaffected  by  the  anti-Nebraska  agitation.  His  term 
of  service  closed  with  the  expiration  of  the  Thirty-third  Con 
gress,  March  3,  1855 ;  and  he  carried  with  him,  in  his  retire 
ment,  the  cordial  respect  and  hearty  personal  good-will  of  all 
his  fellow-senators.  Though  he  had  supported  his  antislavery 
convictions  with  an  unflinching  firmness,  he  had  done  so  with  so 
much  dignity  and  courtliness  of  manner,  and  so  entire  a  freedom 
from  all  personal  imputation  or  impeachment  of  pro-slavery 
Senators  and  pro-slavery  people,  that  he  left  behind  him  no 
enemy  in  the  Senate.  Many  years  afterward  when  in  the  midst 
of  the  war,  Pierre  Soule — who  had  been  a  Senator  from  Loui 
siana  during  a  part  of  Mr.  Chase's  term,  and  a  well-known 
"  fire-eater  " — was  a  political  prisoner  in  Fort  Lafayette,  he  ap 
pealed  to  Mr.  Chase  to  procure  his  enlargement  upon  parole,  and 
recalled  their  former  personal  friendship.  Mr.  Chase  could 
make  no  impression,  however,  upon  the  stern  Secretary  of  "War, 
in  the  effort  he  made  to  procure  Mr.  Soule's  release. 

The  struggle  for  the  possession  of  Kansas  began  even  be 
fore  the  passage  of  the  Nebraska  act,  and  after  that  event  grew 
to  be,  in  time,  a  local  civil  war.  The  antislavery  party  in  the 
North  organized  emigrant  aid  societies ;  the  pro-slavery  party 
in  the  South,  particularly  in  Missouri,  on  the  borders  of  Kansas, 
organized  "  Social  Bands,"  "  Blue  Lodges,"  and  "  Sons  of  the 
South."  The  former  sent  "bona-Jide  settlers;  the  latter  were 
not  so  scrupulous.  Many  hundred  of  these  from  Missouri 
went  over  into  the  Territory,  and  established  a  sort  of  squatter 
empire  there  as  early  as  July  and  August,  1854.  But  though 

1  Mr.  Chase  during  his  senatorial  service  supported  also,  of  course,  many  meas 
ures  of  less  permanent  and  enduring  interest ;  among  these,  the  homestead  law — 
the  devotion  of  a  portion  of  the  public  lands  to  the  support  of  the  indigent  insane — 
the  abolition  of  the  franking  privilege — the  improvement  of  navigation  on  inland 
seas  and  rivers — the  abolition  of  cruel  and  unusual  punishments  in 'the  navy — cheap 
postage.  In  the  Senate  as  everywhere  else,  he  continued  those  habits  of  labor  and 
attention  which  forgot  nothing,  anticipated  all  duties,  and  accomplished  as  much  as  any 
one  in  his  peculiar  situation  could  have  done  in  the  same  circumstances.  He  constantly 
opposed  all  extra  allowances,  all  extravagant  appropriations,  all  unnecessary  expen 
ditures  of  whatever  kind.  His  name  is  rarely  found  wanting  in  the  call  of  the  votes 
of  the  Senate,  and  was  never  absent  when  the  subject  of  it  was  of  real  importance. 


EVENTS  IX  KANSAS.  163 

there  was  a  good  deal  of  threatening  oratory,  and  some  actual 
demonstrations  of  hostility  against  the  free-State  men,  no  blood 
was  shed  till  a  later  period. 

Andrew  H.  Reeder,  of  Pennsylvania — said  to  be  a  sound 
national  Democrat,  who  would  as  soon  buy  a  slave  as  a  horse — 
was  appointed  territorial  Governor.  Accompanied '  by  his  Sec 
retary  of  State — Woodson — Governor  Reeder  arrived  at  Fort 
Leavenworth  in  the  early  part  of  October,  and  established  there 
his  official  residence.  He  declared  his  firm  purpose  to  maintain 
law  and  order;  the  purity  of  the  ballot-box  and  freedom  of 
speech.  In  February  he  caused  a  census  to  be  taken  of  the  in 
habitants  of  the  Territory.  The  total  population  was  found  to 
be  8,501,  of  whom  2,905  were  voters  and  about  250  slaves.  He 
then — in  the  early  part  of  March — ordered  an  election  for  dele 
gates  to  the  first  territorial  Legislature,  to  be  held  on  the  30th 
of  that  month.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  voting  done  in  Kansas 
that  day ;  almost  wholly  by  Missourians,  however,  who  invaded 
the  Territory  by  thousands ;  took  armed  possession  of  the  polls, 
and  elected  of  course  whomsoever  they  wished.  The  Legis 
lature,  elected  in  this  way,  met  on  the  2d  of  July,  and  pro 
ceeded  to  pass  laws  for  the  local  government.  One  of  these 
was  of  an  extraordinary  character.  It  enacted,  among  other 
things,  "that  if  any  free  person  shall  assert  or  maintain,  by 
speaking  or  writing,  that  persons  have  not  the  right  to  hold 
slaves  in  this  Territory ;  or  shall  introduce  into  this  Territory, 
print,  publish,  write,  circulate,  or  cause  to  be  introduced  into  this 
Territory,  written,  printed,  published,  or  circulated  in  this  Ter 
ritory,  any  book,  paper,  magazine,  pamphlet,  or  circular,  con 
taining  any  denial  of  the  right  to  hold  slaves  in  this  Territory 
— such  person  shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  felony  and  punished 
by  imprisonment  at  hard  labor  for  a  term  of  not  less  than  two 
years !  "  Governor  Reeder  systematically  vetoed  the  acts  of  this 
Legislature,  and  refused  to  recognize  their  validity  when  re- 
enacted  over  his  veto ;  and  the  Legislature,  in  its  turn,  peti 
tioned  the  President  for  his  removal — a  prayer  with  which,  in 
due  season,  the  President  complied.  "Wilson  Shannon,  of  Ohio, 
was  appointed  in  Governor  Reeder's  place.  Governor  Shan 
non  recognized  this  Legislature  as  a  legal  body,  whose  laws 
were  valid  and  binding  upon  the  people  of  the  Territory,  and 


OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CEASE. 

ostentatiously  announced  himself  in  favor  of  making  Kansas  a 
slave  State. 

But  the  free-State  settlers,  who  were  continually  augmented 
in  numbers,  as  well  by  voluntary  emigration  as  through  the  in 
strumentality  of  the  "Emigrant  Aid  Societies" — the  latter 
supplying  them  with  materials  of  war  also — were  not  mere  pas 
sive  spectators  of  these  events.  They  held  meetings  in  various 
parts  of  the  Territory ;  declared  their  sympathy  with  Governor 
Reeder ;  pledged  themselves  against  the  introduction  of  slavery, 
and  denounced  the  violation  of  the  ballot-boxes  by  the  Missou- 
rians  as  an  iniquitous  outrage.  In  the  fall  of  1855,  after  Reeder 
had  been  superseded,  they  met  in  convention  by  their  delegates, 
at  Topeka,  and  took  measures  for  the  election  of  other  delegates 
to  a  constitutional  convention.  Delegates  were  elected,  accord 
ingly,  in  October ;  and  met  in  pursuance  of  their  election  and 
formed  a  constitution — excluding  slavery  and  providing  for  the 
erection  of  a  State  government,  which  was  expected  to  go  into 
operation  in  the  following  March.  Under  this  free  constitution, 
they  made  application  to  Congress  for  admission  into  the  Union 
of  the  States,  and  were  rejected. 

Immediately  after  the  adjournment  of  the  Topeka  Free-State 
Convention,  the  pro-slavery  leaders  and  their  followers  held  a 
"  Law-and-order  Convention  "  at  Leavenworth,  over  which  Gov 
ernor  Shannon  presided.  It  denounced  the  Topeka  Conven 
tion  as  a  treasonable  body,  and  pledged  the  "  law-and-order- 
and-union-loving  party "  to  the  support  of  the  laws ;  meaning 
those  laws  enacted  by  the  Legislature  which  Governor  Reeder 
had  repudiated. 

And  now  ensued  a  partisan  warfare,  not  of  great  magnitude, 
but  of  extreme  vindictiveness ;  of  battles,  sieges  and  burnings ; 
of  murder,  pillage  and  outrage.  The  free-State  people,  refus 
ing  to  be  bound  by  the  laws  of  the  fraudulently  elected  Legis 
lature,  organized  for  military  defense  and  aggression  upon  in 
vaders  ;  while  the  territorial  and  national  administrations  sought 
to  enforce  those  laws. 

The  details  of  the  "  Kansas  "War,"  with  ample  exaggeration 
and  embellishment,  found  their  way  into  the  newspapers  of  the 
country,  and  engaged  the  whole  political  elements  in  a  continued 
excited  discussion  of  the  slavery  question. 


MR.  CHASE  NOMINATED  FOR  GOVERNOR.        165 

But  D either  the  outrages  in  Kansas,  nor  the  appeals  of  anti- 
slavery  agitators,  were  patent  enough  to  destroy  the  Democratic 
party,  or  very  seriously  to  cripple  or  disorganize  it.  The  great 
body  of  its  members  in  the  free  States,  notwithstanding  the 
confusion  and  uncertainty  which  reigned  among  them  for  a 
brief  period  after  the  introduction  of  the  Nebraska  Bill  into 
Congress,  were  brought  rapidly  and  completely  into  the  support 
of  the  principle  of  "  non-intervention  "  embodied  in  that  act — 
although  a  large  minority  abandoned  the  party.  On  the  other 
hand  it  received  considerable  accessions  of  pro-slavery  Whigs, 
which  measurably  compensated  for  loss  of  its  own  members. 

In  Ohio,  the  opposition  to  Democratic  ascendency  was  not 
compacted  until  after  the  assembling  of  the  convention  which, 
on  the  13th  of  July,  1855,1  nominated  Mr.  Chase  as  the  Eepub- 
lican  candidate  for  Governor.  The  Know-Nothing  party  was 

1  The  first  State  Convention  of  the  anti-Nebraska  party  of  Ohio  was  held  at  Co 
lumbus  on  the  13th  of  July,  1854,  and  was  largely  due  to  the  personal  efforts  of  Mr. 
Chase  in  rousing  to  action  the  opposition  to  the  new  policy  of  the  national  Adminis 
tration  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  The  anti-Nebraska  party  of  Michigan  met  at  De 
troit  on  the  6th  of  the  same  month ;  and  of  Indiana  on  the  same  day  (July  13th) 
that  the  party  met  hi  State  Convention  in  Ohio.  More  than  a  thousand  accredited 
delegates  were  present  at  Columbus ;  and  other  thousands,  besides  the  alternate 
delegates,  came  with  them  to  aid  with  counsel  and  encouragement.  The  convention 
was  somewhat  contemptuously  called  by  its  enemies  a  "  Chase  movement,"  and  an 
attempt  to  "  fuse "  Whigs  and  Free-Soilers,  but  the  real  purpose  of  the  gathering 
was  well  expressed  by  Judge  Spalding,  of  Cleveland,  in  these  words :  "  This  is  not 
an  attempt  at  fusion,  but  is  an  attempt  to  unite  the  sober  judgment  of  the  people 
of  Ohio  on  the  outrage  perpetrated  upon  them  by  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise."  The  organization  of  this  convention  denoted  the  readiness  with  which 
old  names  and  issues  disappeared  in  the  aspiration  for  national  issues  and  results. 
An  Old-line  Democrat  was  chosen  president ;  an  Old-line  Whig  vice-president,  and 
an  original  Free-Soiler  secretary.  The  committees  were  made  up  chiefly  from  mem 
bers  of  the  old  parties ;  the  committee  on  resolutions  containing  such  well-known 
names  both  in  local  and  national  politics,  as  David  Heaton,  William  B.  Allison  (at 
this  time  a  United  Staces  Senator  from  Iowa),  General  H.  B.  Carrington,  Norton  S. 
Townshend,  Joseph  W.  Vance,  Rufus  P.  Spalding,  and  E.  R.  Eckley.  The  resolu 
tions  were  in  the  spirit  of  the  convention,  which  was  full  of  enthusiasm ;  and  though 
only  two  years  before  General  Pierce  had  carried  Ohio  by  a  majority  of  nearly 
seventeen  thousand  votes,  the  nominees  of  this  13th  of  July  convention  were  elected 
in  the  following  October  by  average  majorities  of  nearly  eighty  thousand  !  It  was 
at  this  same  gathering  also,  that  the  name  "  Republican  "  was  formally  assumed  by 
the  anti-Nebraska  party  of  Ohio ;  in  this,  however,  following  only  in  the  wake  of 
the  Republicans  of  Michigan,  who  had  formally  adopted  that  name  on  the  6th  of 
July  at  thfii"  convention  hi  Detroit. 


166  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

yet  powerful,  and  many  of  its  leaders  were  averse  to  antislavery 
agitation,  and  some  of  these  sought  to  avoid  it  by  forcing  into 
the  front  of  political  action  the  vital  idea  of  the  Know-Nothing 
society ;  but  far  the  larger  part  of  the  opposition  had  little  or  no 
sympathy  with  its  proscriptive  spirit,  and  Mr.  Chase  had  with  it 
no  sympathy  at  all,  as  was  well  known.  But  it  was  apparent 
that  without  a  union  of  all  the  elements  of  opposition  the  De 
mocracy  would  regain  the  control  of  the  State. 

A  union  was  effected,  and  although  a  large  majority  of  the 
convention  which  met  on  the  13th  of  July  were  "  Americans," 
opposition  to  slavery  was  so  much  stronger  among  them  than 
zeal  for  the  principles  of  their  order,  that  Mr.  Chase  was  nomi 
nated  by  a  vote  of  nearly  two  to  one.  The  remainder  of  the 
ticket  was  made  up  chiefly  of  members  of  the  "American" 
party. 

A  considerable  number  of  "Whigs,  however,  who  still  retained 
against  Mr.  Chase  the  animosities  which  had  grown  out  of  his 
election  to  the  Senate  in  184:9,  refused  to  join  in  his  support. 
They  nominated  an  "  American "  candidate,  not  with  any  ex 
pectation  of  electing  him,  but  in  the  hope  of  drawing  enough 
votes  from  Mr.  Chase  to  elect  the  candidate  of  the  Administra 
tion  party. 

In  accepting  the  Republican  nomination,  Mr.  Chase  stated — 
in  a  few  brief  and  vigorous  sentences — his  conceptions  of  the 
political  needs  of  the  times : 

"  On  many  public  questions,"  he  said,  "  not  now  directly  in 
issue,  I  have  had  occasion  heretofore  to  express  my  opinions  in 
various  forms.  Those  opinions  remain  unchanged. 

"  On  the  great  issues  now  before  the  people,  my  opinions 
are  expressed  in  the  platform  you  have  this  day  adopted. 

"The  independence  and  sovereignty  of  the  State,  in  her 
legislation  and  judiciary,  must  be  asserted  and  maintained. 

"  The  spread  of  slavery,  under  all  circumstances  and  at  all 
times,  must  be  inflexibly  resisted. 

"  Slavery  in  the  Territories  must  be  prohibited  by  law.  On 
this  point  there  is  the  most  pressing  need  of  union  and  resolu 
tion.  Kansas  must  be  saved  from  slavery  by  the  voters  of  the 
free  States. 

"  It  was  my  fortune  to  bear  some  humble  part  in  the  memo- 


GUBERNATORIAL   CANVASS   1855.  167 

rable  struggle  which  issued  in  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  prohi 
bition.  Upon  that  occasion,  though  among  the  most  determined 
opponents  of  the  Compromise  of  1850,  I  declared  in  my  place 
that  I  was  ready  to  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the  sup 
porters  of  those  compromises,  now  justly  incensed  by  that  viola 
tion  of  plighted  faith,  for  the  redress  of  that  last  and  greatest 
wrong. 

"  In  this  spirit  I  am  prepared  to  act  to-day.  Side  by  side 
with  all  men  who  are  willing  to  unite  with  me  for  the  defense 
of  freedom,  I  am  ready  to  contend  to  the  last  for  the  rescue  of 
the  Territories  from  slavery. 

"  I  would  do  no  injustice  to  the  slave  States.  All  rights 
guaranteed  to  them  by  the  Constitution  should  be  fully  and 
cheerfully  conceded.  Whatever  can  be  constitutionally  done 
by  the  national  Legislature  to  promote  their  progress  and  im 
provement,  should  be  unhesitatingly  and  ungrudgingly  done. 

"  We  should  insist  only,  that  outside  of  slave  States  we  shall 
not  be  responsible  for  the  maintenance  of  slavery ;  and  that  the 
just  and  constitutional  influence  of  the  Federal  Government 
shall  be  exerted  on  the  side  of  liberty. 

"  The  question  of  slavery  in  the  States  may  safely  be  left  to 
the  States  themselves.  The  humanity,  the  justice,  the  wisdom 
of  the  people  will,  I  trust,  so  dispose  of  it  that  in  the  not  far- 
distant  future  a  day  will  come,  when  the  sun  in  all  his  course 
over  our  broad  land,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  shall  not 
behold  a  slave." 

The  campaign  which  ensued  was  unusually  sharp.  Old  Whigs 
and  old  Democrats  alike  thoroughly  hated  Mr.  Chase.  They 
joined  in  charging  him  with  much  the  greater  part  of  the  politi 
cal  wickedness  that  had  happened  in  the  State  since  his  first  ap 
pearance  in  political  contests  ;  and  it  is  a  remarkable  circum 
stance  that  Whig  journals,  forced  by  public  sentiment  into  his 
support,  were  scarcely  less  abusive  of  him  than  open  enemies. 

He  made  a  vigorous  and  effective  canvass,1  speaking  in  most 

1  C.  R.  M.,  in  the  Brooklyn  Daily  Times  of  the  27th  of  September,  1871,  in  the 
course  of  a  pleasant  and  graphic  sketch  of  "  stump-speakers  "  and  "  stump-speaking  " 
in  Ohio,  says  of  Mr.  Chase  that  "  he  owed  his  rapid,  complete,  and  continued  ascend 
ency  to  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  people,  growing  out  of  his  '  stumping ' 
the  State  and  the  circulation  of  his  printed  speeches.  For  lasting,  permanent  effect 


168  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

of  the  counties,  correcting  misapprehension,  disproving  the  in 
numerable  falsehoods  with  which  he  was  assailed,  and  advocating 
with  characteristic  energy,  the  principles  of  universal  justice 

on  the  public  opinion  of  the  State,  Governor  Chase  has  exerted  probably  a  greater 
influence  than  any  of  his  predecessors. 

"  As  a  '  stump-speaker,'  Chase  was  most  untiring  and  energetic.  During  and  pre 
ceding  his  senatorial  term  no  public  man  in  the  State  made  as  many  speeches  as  he 
did.  Though  the  champion,  at  the  period  of  which  I  am  writing,  of  a  cause  intensely 
unpopular,  his  speeches  were  listened  to  and  read  more  extensively  than  those  of  any 
other  public  man  hi  the  State. 

"  I  have  frequently  heard  Chase  speak  in  cross-road  school-houses  to  audiences 
of  twenty  to  fifty ;  once  in  an  engine-house  in  Cincinnati,  to  an  audience  of  less  than 
forty ;  in  county  court-houses  to  audiences  of  one  hundred  to  two  hundred,  and  in 
the  United  States  Senate.  His  speeches,  whether  in  the  school-house  or  in  the  Sen 
ate,  whether  before  large  or  small  audiences,  were  always  characterized  by  the  same 
unbending  regard  for  truth  and  justice,  by  the  same  calmness  and  self-possession, 
by  the  same  strong  and  clear  statement  of  his  case,  the  same  considerate  regard  for 
the  opinions  of  others.  These  solid  characteristics,  with  his  nobility  of  character, 
his  individuality  and  disinterestedness  of  purpose,  made  him  irresistible  as  a  leader. 

"  Twenty-five  years  ago  I  often  heard  it  said,  '  What  a  pity  such  a  man  as  Chase 
should  throw  himself  away  on  the  worthless  cause  of  abolition ! '  But,  in  fact,  Chase 
never  would  have  acquired  much  influence  as  a  mere  partisan  politician.  It  was  only 
as  a  champion  of  truth  and  justice  that  he  was  strong. 

"  As  to  the  effectiveness  of  Chase  as  a  '  stump-speaker,'  I  have  the  best  means 
of  knowing,  from  1849  to  1852,  a  period  when  the  free  Democracy  of  Ohio  and  the 
Barnburners  of  New  York  were  carrying  on  their  brave  battle  with  the  slave-power, 
I  conducted  a  newspaper  at  Toledo,  Ohio,  with  daily  and  weekly  editions.  In  the 
beginning  of  our  crusade  against  the  slave-power,  the  Democratic  party  majorities 
were  strong  in  all  Northwestern  Ohio.  The  Whig  party  also,  at  that  time,  under 
the  Fillmore  Administration,  where  it  was  not  hostile,  was  indifferent  to  the  Free-Soil 
cause.  Against  all  these  adverse  influences  the  free  Democracy  had  to  contend ; 
but  having  access  to  the  people  through  the  press,  we  printed  and  circulated  Chase's 
epeeches,  and  sent  them  into  every  household  where  they  would  receive  them.  We 
appointed  frequent  meetings,  and  Senator  Chase  never  failed  in  responding  to  the  in 
vitations  of  our  committees  to  address  the  people.  He  was  as  prompt  and  thorough 
in  going  through  our  congressional  districts  and  delivering  '  stump-speeches,'  wher 
ever  appointments  had  been  made  for  him,  as  he  now  is  hi  discharging  his  judicial 
duties  at  Washington  or  hi  distant  and  remote  parts  of  the  Union. 

"The  surprising  effect  of  this  canvassing — Chase  being  our  leader  and  chief 
speaker — was,  that  in  a  short  time  the  free  Democracy  gained  ascendency  in  the 
county;  and,  in  rapid  succession,  we  gained  the  majority  in  the  Assembly,  senato 
rial  and  congressional  districts.  I  have  always  attributed  this  rapid,  complete  and 
permanent  triumph  of  the  Free-Soil  cause  in  the  northwestern  counties  of  Ohio — 
winning  that  triumph  against  strong  and  hostile  party  organization — mainly  to  the 
effective  influence  of  Senator  Chase  as  a  '  stump-speaker,'  supplemented  by  the  in 
fluence  of  a  friendly  press  hi  printing  and  carrying  to  every  household  his  masterly 
speeches." 


IS  ELECTED  GOVERNOR.  169 

upon  which,  in  his  younger  years — without  hope  of  preferment 
or  reward — he  had  staked,  unflinchingly,  both  his  personal  and 
political  fortunes. 

The  result  of  that  canvass  was  decisive  of  the  fate  of  the 
Democratic  party  in  Ohio  for  nearly  a  score  of  years.  Mr.  Chase 
was  elected  by  a  decided  majority  (15,550)  in  a  full  vote ;  and 
the  Republican  party  at  once  attained  to  an  organization  and 
discipline  such  as  the  Whig  party  in  the  State,  in  all  its  long 
career,  had  never  known. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

ME.    CHASE    AS    GOVERNOR EDUCATION — THE    MARGAHET    GARNER 

TRAGEDY LETTER    OF    MR.    CHASE    TO    MR.    TROWBRIDGE,    GIV 
ING   A   HISTORY  OF   THAT   CASE. 

AT  the  time  Mr.  Chase  became  Governor  of  Ohio,  the  agita 
tion  of  questions  of  national  politics  was  so  great  as  almost 
entirely  to  obscure,  in  interest  and  comparative  importance, 
questions  of  merely  State  policy.  These  were,  however,  the 
usual  questions  upon  which  the  old  parties  differed  in  most  of 
the  States,  and  related  more  particularly  to  methods  of  taxation 
and  economy  of  administration,  and  generally  were  of  purely 
local  concern.  But  he  addressed  himself  at  once  to  the  duties 
of  his  position ;  promoting  reforms  wherever  reforms  were  prac 
ticable  ;  encouraged  educational  interests,  as  seemed  to  him  best 
calculated  to  advance  the  public  good ;  *  largely  reorganized  the 

1  In  a  letter  under  date  of  July  6,  1858,  addressed  to  the  State  Teachers'  Asso 
ciation  of  Ohio,  Mr.  Chase  gives  some  ideas  touching  education. 

"  GENTLEMEN  :  I  regret  my  absence  from  the  meeting  of  the  Association  on  my 
own  account,  for  I  am  thoroughly  conscious  how  meagrely  any  thing  I  could  say 
would  reward  the  attention  of  its  members.  But  if  I  could  communicate  little  I 
could  receive  much,  as  I  wish  to  learn  all  I  can  in  respect  to  the  best  means  of  pro 
moting  the  cause  of  education  in  our  State. 

"  In  that  case,  having  been  myself  a  teacher,  and  knowing  something  of  a  teach 
er's  responsibilities,  trials  and  aspirations,  I  naturally  and  almost  necessarily  feel  a 
lively  interest.  No  safer,  no  more  remunerative  investment  of  revenue  is  made  by 
the  State,  than  in  the  instruction  of  the  youth. 

"  Stinginess  here  ia  not  economy.  It  is  waste,  and  the  worst  description  of 
waste — the  waste  of  mind.  Of  that  power  originates  the  energies  that  make  effi 
cient  whatever  activities  promote  private  or  public  prosperity. 

"  The  school-house  is  a  better  institution  than  the  court-house  or  the  state-house. 


THE  MARGARET  GARNER  CASE.  171 

military  system  of  the  State  ;  and  lost  no  opportunity  in  making 
the  voice  of  Ohio  heard  on  the  side  of  freedom  and  justice. 
At  the  same  time  he  endeavored,  as  far  as  was  practicable,  to 
conciliate  opposition  founded  in  misapprehension,  and  to  raise 
the  position  of  the  State  to  the  highest  point  of  dignity  and 
respect  attainable  among  the  States  of  the  Union.  His  public 
papers  were  models  of  terse  and  vigorous  writing.  The  Repub 
lican  party,,  when  he  left  the  chair,  was  the  most  compact  and 
powerful  political  organization  ever  known  in  the  history  of 
Ohio. 

Within  a  fortnight  after  he  became  Governor,  a  slave-hunt 
took  place  in  the  southern  part  of  the  State,  which,  from  its  cir 
cumstances  of  great  and  peculiar  horror,  for  a  time  excited  an 
absorbed  attention.  The  story  of  Margaret  Garner  is  best  told 
in  Mr.  Chase's  own  words,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Trowbridge : 

"WASHINGTON,  March  13, 1864. 

" .  .  .  .  The  Margaret  Garner  case  is  invested  with  a  peculiar  interest 
by  reason  of  its  tragic  circumstances. 

"  It  is  impossible  to  state  the  facts  except  in  the  merest  outline ;  but 
even  an  outline  will  convey  a  pretty  accurate  idea  of  the  whole  transaction. 

"In  the  night  of  the  27th  of  January,  1856,  a  party  of  slaves  escaped 

In  the  state-house  laws  are  enacted ;  in  the  court-house  laws  are  applied.  In  the 
school-house  legislators,  judges  and  jurymen  are  made. 

"  Especially  the  school-house  is  indispensable  where  popular  government  is  made 
a  reality  by  universal  suffrage  and  general  eligibility  to  office.  It  is  impossible  to 
over-estimate  the  importance  of  universal  education  where  everybody  is  to  be  a 
voter,  and  where  anybody  may  be  a  President. 

"  To  make  the  school-house  efficient,  teachers  must  not  only  be  qualified  but 
honored  !  The  responsibility  of  their  trust,  the  magnitude  of  their  work,  and  the 
dignity  of  their  calling,  must  be  acknowledged,  and  not  coldly  acknowledged  only, 
but  thoroughly  appreciated.  The  community  hardly  yet  begins  to  realize  its  debt 
of  gratitude,  honor  and  reward,  it  owes  to  the  teachers  of  the  schools. 

"  These  things  are  obvious ;  but  what  practical  methods  are  best  adapted  to 
secure  the  great  end  of  giving  to  all  the  youths  of  the  State  the  best  education  they 
are  willing  to  receive  and  are  capable  of  receiving,  is  not  so  clear. 

"  What  provisions  for  the  education  of  teachers  should  be  supplied  ;  how  far,  if 
at  all,  the  colleges  of  the  State,  and  especially  those  more  immediately  under  legisla 
tive  control,  may  be  made  parts  of  the  general  plan  of  education,  or  serviceable  to 
the  general  purpose  of  educating  teachers  ;  and  what  may  be  fitly  and  economically 
done  to  extend  the  benefits  of  the  educational  system  beyond  school-house  walla 
by  lectures  and  libraries,  are  subjects  which  doubtless  will  engage  your  discussions, 
and  in  respect  of  which  I  should  be  particularly  glad  to  have  the  benefit  of  them." 


172  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

from  Boone  County,  in  Kentucky,  into  Storrs  township,  adjoining  Cincin 
nati,  on  the  Ohio  River.  Among  the  persons  comprising  the  party  were  an 
old  man  named  Simon  Garner  and  his  wife — so  far  as  a  slave  woman  could 
be  a  wife — Mary ;  a  son  of  the  old  man,  also  named  Simon,  and  Margaret 
his  wife,  and  their  four  children. 

"  They  took  refuge  in  the  house  of  a  colored  man,  living  near  the  river's 
bank,  below  Mill  Creek — a  stream  which  divides  Storrs  from  Cincinnati. 
They  were  tracked  immediately,  and  a  warrant  for  their  apprehension  was 
obtained  the.  next  morning,  Monday,  the  28th,  from  one  P ,  a  com 
missioner  appointed  by  Justice  McLean  under  the  fugitive  slave  act  of  1850. 
Provided  with  this  warrant,  the  United  States  marshal — a  person  named 
Robinson — with  a  gang  of  officers  and  the  slave-claimants,  hastened  to  the 
house  where  the  fugitives  had  taken  refuge.  Their  entrance  was  resisted. 
Young  Simon,  who  was  armed  with  a  six-shooter,  fired  four  shots  on  the 
party  of  official  and  unofficial  slave-hunters,  before  he  and  his  companions 
were  captured.  While  this  was  going  on,  his  wife  Margaret,  who  was  natu 
rally  of  a  violent  temper,  and  now  frenzied  by  excitement,  seized  a  butcher- 
knife,  and,  declaring  that  she  would  kill  all  her  children  before  they  should 
be  taken  across  the  river,  actually  succeeded  in  killing  one,  a  little  girl  of 
ten  years  of  age,  named  Mary. 

"The  survivors  were  taken  in  custody,  and  conveyed  to  a  police 
station.  The  friends  of  the  slaves  procured  the  same  day  a  writ  of  habeas 
corpus,  returnable  before  the  probate  judge  of  the  county ;  which  was 
executed  by  the  sheriff  so  far  as  to  take  the  slaves  into  custody  and  con 
vey  them  to  the  county  jail. 

"  The  probate  judge  immediately  proceeded  to  Columbus,  to  confer 
with  me  as  to  the  proper  course  of  procedure. 

"  The  hostility  to  abolition,  under  which  name  was  included  all  earnest 
antislavery  action,  was  at  this  time  intense  in  Southern  Ohio,  and 
nowhere  more  intense  than  in  Cincinnati.  At  the  election  which  had  been 
held  for  Governor  only  three  months  before,  I  had  received  in  Hamilton 
County  (which  includes  Cincinnati)  only  forty-five  hundred  and  eighteen 
votes,  out  of  twenty-three  thousand  two  hundred  and  eighty.  The  rest 
— divided  between  the  Democratic  and  Know-Nothing  candidates — repre 
sented  hostility  to  my  political  and  especially  to  my  antislavery  opinions 
and  principles. 

"  I  had  been  Governor  just  fourteen  days  when  the  probate  judge 
called  to  confer  with  me.  It  was  not  necessary  for  me  to  inform  him  that, 
in  my  judgment,  the  fugitive  slave  act  was  unconstitutional ;  it  had  been 
proclaimed  on  too  many  occasions  to  leave  in  ignorance  a  man  so  well 
informed.  Nor  did  I  think  it  right  to  make  any  suggestions  to  a  magis 
trate  concerning  a  decision  to  be  made  by  him.  "What  he  naturally 
desired  to  know,  and  had  a  right  to  know,  was  whether  the  Executive  of 
the  State  would  sustain  the  process  of  the  State  in  the  midst  of  a  commu 
nity  in  which,  by  most  persons,  any  decision  against  the  claims  of  masters 


THE  MARGARET  GARNER  CASE.  173 

would  be  regarded  as  little  better  than  treason  to  the  Constitution  and 
Union.  I  did  not  hesitate  to  assure  him  that  the  process  of  the  State 
courts  should  be  enforced  in  every  part  of  the  State,  whether  in  Hamilton 
or  any  other  county ;  and  authorized  him  to  say  to  the  sheriff  that,  in  the 
performance  of  his  duty,  he  would  be  sustained  by  the  whole  power  at  the 
command  of  the  Governor. 

"  The  case — for  some  reason  satisfactory  to  the  friends  of  the  slaves 
— was  not  brought  to  a  hearing  before  the  probate  judge  on  the  writ 
then  issued.  Proceedings  under  it  were  abandoned,  and  the  sheriff  had 
already  (on  Tuesday),  before  the  return  of  the  judge,  notified  the  Federal 
marshal  that  he  did  not  regard  the  fugitives  as  in  his  custody,  though 
they  might  remain  in  jail;  but  as  in  that  of  the  officers  of  the  United 
States. 

"  The  slave-act  commissioner,  under  whose  warrant  the  seizure  had 
been  made,  then  declared  his  purpose  to  proceed  to  hear  the  case  on  the 
claim  for  surrender ;  but  delays  of  various  kinds  were  interposed,  until 
on  Friday,  February  8th,  the  grand-jury  of  Hamilton  County  reported  an 
indictment  against  the  two  Garners  for  the  murder  of  the  child  Mary ; 
and  all  four  being  still  in  jail,  they  were  again  taken  into  custody  by  the 
sheriff.  The  three  children  remained  in  jail  also,  but  were  regarded  as 
being  in  the  custody  of  the  marshal. 

"  Matters  remained  in  this  condition  for  some  days — until  the  marshal 
applied  to  the  United  States  district  judge  for  a  habeas  corpus  against 
the  sheriff  for  the  four  fugitives,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  them  before 
him,  to  determine — not  whether  they  were  unlawfully  deprived  of  their 
liberty— but  whether  the  sheriff  was  entitled  to  their  custody  under  the 
criminal  process  of  the  State,  rather  than  the  marshal  under  the  slave-act 
commissioner's  warrant. 

"It  was  a  manifest  abuse  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  thus  to  convert 
it  into  a  summary  replevin ;  but  the  counsel  for  the  sheriff — one  of  whom, 
in  conversation  with  the  judge,  had  heard  him  express  the  opinion  that 
the  prisoners  could  not  be  removed  from  custody  under  arrest  for  crime, 
by  any  proceeding  under  the  fugitive  slave  act — made  no  opposition  to 
the  allowance  of  the  writ.  It  was  accordingly  granted,  and  a  hearing  was 
had  on  Tuesday,  the  26th  of  February,  upon  the  return  of  the  sheriff,  that 
he  held  the  four  persons  indicted  under  the  process  of  the  State,  to  abide 
their  trial  on  the  charge  of  murder. 

"  After  the  argument  before  the  district  judge  was  closed,  the  judge 
allowed  the  slave-act  commissioner  to  take  the  bench,  and  announce  his 
decision  in  the  proceeding  commenced  by  his  warrant.  As  was  expected, 
he  denied  the  fugitives  the  claims  to  freedom  asserted  in  their  behalf,  and 
ordered  that  all  should  be  delivered  to  their  respective  claimants. 

"  The  slave-act  commissioner  in  the  case  was  a  weak,  mercenary  fellow ; 
but  his  decision  is  written  in  judicial  style,  and  bears  the  marks  of  a  very 
different  order  of  intellect  from  his.  Who  wrote  it  ? 


174  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  Meanwhile  another  writ  of  habeas  corpus  had  been  issued  by  Judge 
Burgoyne,  of  the  Probate  Court,  for  the  three  children ;  on  which  a  hear 
ing  was  had  before  him  on  the  same  day — Tuesday,  February  26th — on 
which  the  slave-act  commissioner  delivered  his  decision  as  just  stated. 
After  many  arguments  on  the  constitutionality  of  the  slave  act,  and  par 
ticularly  that  part  of  it  which  makes  United  States  commissioners  judges 
in  cases  arising  under  it,  he  deferred  his  judgment  until  Saturday  follow 
ing,  having  made  a  special  order  that  the  children  should  not  be  removed 
from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court  until  final  decision. 

"On Thursday  morning,  however,  the  United  States  district  judge  an 
nounced  his  decision  in  the  case  which  had  been  argued  before  him.  He 
declared— to  the  surprise  of  every  one,  unless  some  had  foreknowledge  of 
his  conclusions — that  the  custody  of  the  sheriff  as  against  the  claims  of 
the  marshal  under  the  fugitive  slave  act,  was  unlawful ;  and  ordered  the 
former  to  deliver  the  indicted  prisoners  to  the  latter. 

"  With  this  order  the  marshal  at  once  proceeded  to  the  jail,  where  the 
sheriff  delivered  to  him  not  only  the  four  indicted  prisoners,  but  also  the 
three  children,  notwithstanding  the  order  of  the  probate  judge  as  to  the 
latter.  All  the  fugitives  were  at  once  hurried  into  an  omnibus,  which  was 
surrounded  by  a  number  of  special  deputy  marshals — (there  were  Jive  hun 
dred  of  these  appointed,  the  purchase  of  whose  claims  for  fees,  it  was  said, 
offered  a  good  chance  for  speculation  to  certain  Federal  officers !) — and 
immediately  driven  to  the  river,  and  taken  across  into  Kentucky.  Hardly 
an  hour  elapsed  after  the  United  States  district  judge  had  made  his  order 
before  the  fugitives  were  lodged  in  a  Kentucky  jail. 

"  I  had  observed  the  proceedings  in  these  cases  with  great  interest  and 
a  deep  solicitude  for  the  fate  of  the  slaves.  All  that  I  could  do  in  their 
behalf,  under  the  circumstances  then  existing,  was  done.  They  were  rep 
resented  by  able  counsel,  and  the  power  of  the  State  was  pledged  to  main 
tain  the  process  of  the  State.  No  one  imagined  that  any  judge  could  be 
found  who  would  undertake  to  transfer  by  a  proceeding  in  habeas  corpus, 
prisoners  indicted  under  a  State  law  to  Federal  custody  under  the  fugitive 
slave  act.  Nor  did  any  one  imagine  that  persons  held  under  an  order  of 
a  State  court,  during  the  pendency  of  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  would  be 
carried  off  beyond  the  jurisdiction  and  in  violation  of  that  order.  But 
such  a  judge  was  found,  and  such  an  abduction  was  perpetrated. 

"  I  could  not  prevent  this  any  more  than  I  could  prevent  the  commis 
sion  of  other  outrages.  I  could  not  foresee  such  transactions,  and  if  I 
could  have  foreseen  I  had  no  more  power  to  prevent  them  than  any  private 
citizen  had ;  except  in  the  single  contingency  that  the  sheriff  might  need 
the  power  of  the  State  to  enforce  the  execution  of  process  in  his  hands. 
Except  in  that  contingency,  I  had  no  power  other  than  that  the  whole 
weight  of  which  was  given  to  the  side  of  the  fugitives  in  every  form  of 
counsel,  encouragement  and  support,  to  those  engaged  in  their  defense.  I 
was  not  in  Cincinnati  during  the  proceedings.  The  Legislature  was  in 


THE  MARGARET  GARNER  CASE.  175 

session.  I  had  only  a  fortnight  before  the  capture  of  the  fugitives  entered 
into  office,  wholly  without  experience  in  its  duties,  and  my  constant  pres 
ence  was  required  at  Columbus.  Had  I  been  in  Cincinnati,  I  do  not  see 
that  I  should  have  been  likely  to  add  any  thing  to  the  zeal  or  ability  with 
which  the  cause  of  the  fugitives  was  defended,  or  to  suggest  any  thing 
which  did  not  occur  to  their  counsel.  And  certainly,  if  they  on  the  spot 
could  devise  no  way  to  prevent  the  surrender  and  carrying  off  of  the  fu 
gitives  under  the  unforeseen  circumstances  of  that  day,  it  is  not  wonderful 
that  I  could  devise  none  while  a  hundred  and  twenty  miles  distant,  and 
wholly  uninformed  of  the  outrage  that  was  being  enacted. 

"Some  abolitionists  have  blamed  me  because  I  did  not  in  some  way 
prevent  the  carrying  back  into  slavery  of  Margaret  Garner.  They  saw 
the  tragic  circumstances  of  her  seizure,  and  felt  peculiar  sympathy  for  her, 
but  they  did  not  see  the  extraordinary  efforts  made  to  save  her.  That 
those  efforts  were  unsuccessful,  all  humane  persons  must  lament ;  but  how 
more  effort  could  be  made,  or  with  what  more  likelihood  of  success,  no 
one  has  yet  pointed  out.  And  no  one  conversant  with  the  circumstances 
and  concerned  in  the  efforts  made  in  her  behalf,  has  found  fault  with  what 
I  did.  All  those  approved  my  action  and  were  grateful  for  my  support. 
It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  Margaret  was  but  one  of  seven  fugitives, 
each  of  whom  was  entitled  if  not  to  equal  sympathy,  certainly  to  equal 
rights  and  equal  efforts  for  their  protection.  None  of  these  were  forgot 
ten  or  neglected. 

"  After  they  were  surrendered,  the  prosecuting  attorney  sent  me  copies 
of  the  indictment  and  proceedings,  and  suggested  that  although  the  in 
dicted  prisoners  could  hardly  be  considered  as  having  fled  from  justice  in 
Ohio,  yet  it  might  be  proper  to  regard  them  as  having  constructively  done 
so,  and  to  issue  a  requisition  for  their  delivery  to  an  agent  of  the  State,  to 
be  brought  back  within  its  jurisdiction.  I  felt  keenly  the  humiliation  of 
being  reduced  to  this  mode  of  asserting  the  right  of  the  State  to  the  cus 
tody  of  persons  indicted  under  her  laws.  It  was  obvious  that  when  re 
turned  to  the  custody  of  the  sheriff,  they  would  be  in  precisely  the  same 
relations  as  when  they  were  taken  from  his  custody  by  the  order  of  the 
United  States  district  judge,  and  there  would  be  no  legal  obstacle,  which 
did  not  exist  to  the  original  order,  to  a  repetition  of  it. 

"A  friend,  however,  volunteered — if  I  would  issue  a  requisition — to  go 
with  the  agent  and  purchase  the  freedom  of  the  three  children,  and  it 
seemed  probable,  if  the  others  could  be  brought  back,  that  an  arrange 
ment  might  be  made  also  with  their  claimants  for  the  relinquishment  of 
their  claims  upon  them.  So  I  overcame  my  reluctance  to  adopt  the  theory 
of  constructive  escape,  and  issued  the  requisition. 

"My  agent,  and  the  gentleman  who  had  volunteered  to  accompany 
him,  immediately  departed  on  their  mission  and  obtained  a  warrant  of 
extradition  from  the  Governor  of  Kentucky,  who  doubtless  gladly  em 
braced  the  opportunity  of  making  a  precedent  of  constructive  escape, 


176  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

which  he  hoped  would  be  useful  to  claimants  of  slaves  found  in  Ohio,  but 
not  actual  fugitives  from  a  slave  State. 

"  With  the  warrant  thus  obtained,  the  agent  proceeded  to  Louisville, 
but  the  slave-masters  continued  to  evade  him,  and  the  slaves  were  sent 
South  notwithstanding  our  efforts  to  recover  them. 

"  Hearing  subsequently  that  Margaret  had  been  brought  back  to,  Cov- 
ington,  I  wrote  to  the  prosecuting  attorney  to  go  over  and  demand  her. 
He  went,  and  was  told  that  she  had  been  there,  but  had  again  been  sent 
to  the  South.  It  is  doubtful  whether  she  was  in  fact  ever  brought  back 
there. 

"Nothing  has  been  heard  of  the  Garner  family  since.  Perhaps  the  re 
bellion  has  restored  the  liberty  of  which  the  cause  of  the  rebellion  caused 
the  loss,  and  we  may  yet  hear  of  these  slaves  as  among  those  rejoicing  in 
the  new-found  freedom  which  God's  providence  has  given  to  so  many." 


CHAPTEK   XXI. 


SOUTHERN  DISTRICT   OF   OHIO ACTION    OF    THE    STATE    COURTS 

SLAVE-SHOOTING  ON  EANE's    CREEK — PUBLIC     MEETINGS    IN 

OHIO CONFLICT      OF     FEDERAL      AND      STATE      PROCESS — THE 

GREAT    RAILWAY  CELEBRATION    OF    1857 — REMARKS     OF    GOV 
ERNOR   CHASE  AT  BALTIMORE COLONEL  CARRINGTON's   MISSION 

AND   INTERVIEW  WITH   SECRETARY  OF  STATE  CASS INTERVIEW 

OF    GOVERNOR    CHASE     WITH     MR.    BUCHANAN   AND    GENERAL 
CASS. 

THE  Margaret  Garner  case  was  not  the  only  slave-hunt 
which  took  place  in  Ohio  during  Mr.  Chase's  administration. 
There  were  several  such ;  two  or  three  of  them  being  of  impor 
tance  in  their  possible  consequences.  !N"ot  long  before  the  close 
of  his  first  term,  an  attempt  to  capture  a  fugitive  agitated  the 
western  part  of  the  State,  and  at  one  time  threatened  a  serious 
collision  with  the  Federal  authority. 

But  Mr.  Chase,  while  upholding  with  a  strong  hand  the  inde 
pendence  and  dignity  of  Ohio,  never  lost  sight  of  the  relations 
which  so  central  and  powerful  a  State  ought  to  sustain  toward 
the  General  Government.  His  administration  was  not  aggres 
sive,  therefore,  but  was  marked  by  the  natural  and  wise  conser 
vatism  of  his  character. 

On  the  15th  day  of  May,  1857,  the  Deputy  TJ.  S.  Marshal 
for  Southern  Ohio,  with  five  citizens  of  Kentucky,  holding  a 
warrant  issued  by  a  United  States  commissioner  at  Cincinnati, 
reached  Mechanicsburg,  Ohio,  and  went  thence  nearly  a  mile 
into  the  country  to  the  house  of  Russell  Hyde,  in  pursuit  of  a 
12 


178  LEFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

fugitive  slave,  who  had  lived  there  nearly  six  months,  and  was 
daily  expecting  his  family  to  join  him  in  a  land  of  freedom. 
Anderson,  the  fugitive,  took  refuge  in  a  loft ;  was  fired  upon  by 
one  of  the  party,  and  returned  the  fire.  The  pursuers,  who  had 
by  this  time  aroused  the  neighbors,  retired  from  the  field  and 
returned  to  Cincinnati', 

On  the  27th  the  party  returned,  reenf  orced ;  but  Anderson 
meantime  had  fled  and  was  safe  in  Canada.  Arrests  were  made, 
however,  of  Russell  Hyde  and  three  other  citizens,  charged  with 
adding  and  abetting  the  escape  of  the  fugitive.  Expecting,  as 
they  were  advised,  that  they  would  be  examined  at  Urbana,  the 
county-seat,  no  resistance  was  made ;  but  instead  of  Urbana  the 
intended  destination  was  Cincinnati.  The  proper  legal  papers 
were  prepared,  upon  which  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  was  obtained 
with  a  view  4;o  determine  the  legitimacy  of  the  arrest,  but  before 
the  sheriff  was  able  to  serve  the  writ,  the  marshal's  posse  had 
crossed  the  county  line,  into  Clark  County,  and  was  out  of  his 
bailiwick.  A  second  writ  issued  out  of  the  Clark  County  court, 
but  the  marshal's  party,  when  overtaken,  refused  to  obey  the 
writ,  and  before  adequate  force  could  be  obtained  to  enforce  the 
process,  the  boundary-line  was  also  crossed.  A  third  writ  was 
obtained  in  Greene  County,  and  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  a 
sufficient  posse ;  and  was  enforced  after  an  exchange  of  shots 
between  the  parties.  The  evidence  was  conflicting  as  to  which 
party  first  fired,  and  touching  the  conduct  of  the  marshal's  assist 
ants  ;  but  in  this  connection  these  facts  are  not  material. 

On  the  29th  of  May  the  U.  S.  District  Judge  for  the  South 
ern  District  of  Ohio,  issued  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  directing  the 
sheriff  of  Clark  County  to  bring  the  deputy-marshals  arrested 
by  him  and  named  in  the  writ,  before  that  court,  and  show  cause 
for  their  detention.  Meanwhile,  several  of  them  had  been  held 
to  bail  by  State- Justice  Christie,  of  Clark  County,  on  a  charge  of 
assault  with  intent  to  kill,  and  for  want  of  securities  they  had 
been  placed  in  confinement.  This  writ  was  executed  and  the 
parties  were  brought  into  court.  The  cause  was  argued  on  the 
25th  of  June ;  Attorney-General  Christopher  P.  Wolcott,  by 
direction  of  Governor  Chase,1  appearing  for  the  State.  Mr.  "Wol- 

1  The  leading  Democratic  paper  of  Southern  Ohio — the  Cincinnati  Enquirer^ 
commenting  on  these  events,  thus  closed  a  "  leader : "  "  The  designation  of  the  Attor- 


"GREENE   COUNTY  SLAVE-HUNT."  179 

cott  declared  that  "  the  United  States  could  not  go  behind  the 
State  criminal  record — that  the  Federal  court  could  no  more  go 
behind  the  power  of  the  State  court,  than  a  State  court  could 
go  behind  that  of  a  Federal  court — otherwise  the  .two  Govern 
ments  would  come  into  direct  opposition.  Both  would  attempt 
to  execute  process,  and  this  would  end  in  an  appeal  to  arms." 

In  the  mean  time  other  events  had  occurred  to  excite  the 
public  mind.  On  the  21st  of  June  three  slaves  started  from 
Henry  County,  Kentucky,  crossed  the  river,  and  were  pursued, 
without  process,  and  found  by  the  claimants  behind  some  logs, 
on  Kane's  Creek,  about  four  miles  from  the  river.  In  the  course 
of  these  transactions,  one  negro  was  killed,  one  escaped,  and  one 
was  captured.  . 

On  the  20th  of  June  a  mass  meeting  of  the  citizens  of  Clark 
County  was  held  at  Charleston,  and  positive  ground  was  taken 
upon  the  right  of  the  State  to  protect  her  officers  in  the  execu 
tion  of  the  legitimate  process  of  the  State  courts.  A  few  days 
later  a  large  meeting  was  held  at  Cedarville,  at  which  the  skir 
mish  between  the  deputy-marshal  and  the  posse  of  the  State  was 
called  the  "  battle  of  Lumbarton." 

The  attorney  who  had  drawn  the  papers  for  the  issue  of  the 
State  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  was  put  under  arrest  on  a  warrant 
issued  by  the  U.  S.  Commissioner  at  Cincinnati,  and  held  in 
bonds  of  fifteen  hundred  dollars  to  answer  a  charge  of  resisting 
the  arrest  of  fugitives  from  labor. 

On  tlje  9th  of  July,  the  United  States  District  Judge  dis 
charged  the  deputy-marshals  out  of  custody;  admitting,  how 
ever,  that  there  "  was  a  question  whether  the  marshals  had  not 
exceeded  authority  in  the  use  of  unnecessary  force." 

Thus  it  happened  that  both  the  Federal  and  State  courts 
alike  had  outstanding  process,  involving  violations  of  criminal  or 
statute  law,  and  each  was  alike  jealous  of  dignity  and  prerogative. 

Governor  Chase,  in  this  state  of  affairs,  determined  upon  a 
personal  interview  with  the  authorities  at  "Washington;  not 
choosing  to  leave  the  matter  to  correspondence  and  the  opposing 
statements  of  the  parties  at  issue. 

ney-General  by  Governor  Chase  to  aid  the  lawyers  retained  by  the  Sheriff  of  Clark 
County,  is  equivalent  to  a  declaration  of  war  on  the  part  of  Chase  and  his  abolition 
crew  against  the  United  States  courts.  Let  the  war  come  ;  the  sooner  the  better." 


180  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

Just  at  tliis  time  the  great  railway  celebration  of  1857 — at  the 
opening  of  the  Ohio  &  Mississippi,  the  Marietta  &  Cincinnati, 
and  the  northwestern  arm  of  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  Eailroad — 
occurred,  bringing  Secretary  Cass,  Mayor  Swann,  of  Baltimore, 
and  many  other  distinguished  citizens,  from  the  Eastern  cen 
tral  and  the  border  States  to  the  "West,  where  numerous  ex 
cursions,  speeches  and  social  reunions  made  quite  emphatic  the 
supposed  value  of  railroads  in  promoting  harmony  between  the 
sections. 

During  the  return-trip  to  Baltimore  and  Washington,  Gov 
ernor  Chase — whose  words  were  eagerly  watched,  in  view  of  his 
well-known  antislavery  antecedents — took  occasion,  during  a 
banquet  given  at  the  Maryland  Institute  (Baltimore),  to  express 
the  sentiment  extracted  below.  He  was  introduced  to  the  assem 
bled  guests  by  Mayor  Swann,  who  had  been  an  early  and  warmly- 
attached  friend  during  his  teaching  and  student-life  in  Wash 
ington,  and  a  companion  in  the  law-office,  of  "William  Wirt: 
"  You  have  spoken  eloquently,"  he  said,  "  of  railroads  as  bonds 
of  union ;  and  your  observations  were  as  just  as  they  were  elo 
quent.  There  must  of  course  be  differences  of  opinion  among 
us  on  some  points  ;  and  real  grievances  may  from  time  to  time 
demand  redress.  But  there  is  no  evil  for  which  disunion  is  the 
proper  cure.  And  the  more  we  see  of  each  other,  the  less  likely 
we  shall  be  to  commit  the  error  of  thinking  otherwise,  The 
fact  is,  that  we  who  live  along  the  line  of  the  American  Central 
Kail  way  don't  mean  to  let  the  Union,  be  broken  up.  Maryland 
will  not  consent  to  it,  I  think.  I  trust  Yirginia  will  not.  Ohio, 
I  am  sure,  will  not ;  nor  Indiana,  nor  Illinois,  nor  Missouri. 
Who  then,  will  ? — We  may  differ  hereafter  as  we  have  differed 
heretofore.  We  will  maintain  our  respective  positions  with 
candor,  courtesy,  firmness  and  resolution ;  and  we  will  refer 
whatever  questions  may  be  between  us  to  the  great  American 
tribunal  of  popular  discussion  and  popular  judgment.  But,  in 
the  time  to  come,  as  in  the  time  past,  we  will  cleave  to  THE 
UNION  as  an  ark  of  refuge :  and,  -under  God,  as  our  surest 
guarantee  of  prosperity  and  power,  and  abiding  glory."  These 
words  excited  a  genuine  enthusiasm  among  those  who  heard 
them. 

—  From  Baltimore,  Governor  Chase  went  to  Annapolis,  to 


INTERVIEW  WITH  PRESIDENT  BUCHANAN.  181 

visit  there  Commodore  Goldsborough,  then  in  command  of  the 
Naval  School — whose  wife  was  a  daughter  of  William  Wirt. 
From  Annapolis  he  sent  Colonel  Carrington,  of  his  staff,  to 
"Washington ;  Colonel  Carrington's  mission  being  to  arrange  an 
interview  for  Mr.  Chase  with  President  Buchanan,  and  his 
Secretary  of  State  at  that  time,  General  Cass.  Colonel  Car 
rington  carried  with  him  a  memorandum  containing  Mr.  Chase's 
general  views  in  relation  to  the  threatened  conflict  between  the 
Federal  and  State  authorities  in  Ohio.  In  his  conference  with 
General  Cass,  Colonel  Carrington  stated 'that  Governor  Chase 
was  as  earnest  in  support  of  Federal  authority,  legitimately  exer 
cised,  as  he  was  in  support  of  the  authority  of  the  State ;  but 
that  he  should  feel  compelled  to  protect  the  State  officials  in 
the  exercise  of  their  duties,  and  the  State  courts  in  the  exer 
cise  of  their  legitimate  functions,  if  it  took  every  man  in  the 
State  to  do  it.  To  this  General  Cass  l  responded  by  saying  that 
such  a  course  might  involve  the  country  in  the  most  serious 
consequences.  "  Time,"  said  he,  "  will  surely  rid  us. of  slavery  ; 
and  we  must  tolerate  its  crosses  as  best  we  can  while  it  lasts. 
But  if  the  peace  should  once  be  broken,  God  only  knows  what 
the  end  would  be.  How  is  peace  to  be  preserved,"  he  asked, 
"  if  the  States  once  bristle  in  arms,  and  only  await  opportunity 
openly  to  contend  ? "  Colonel  Carrington,  adhering  closely  to 
the  instructions  of  his  memorandum,  said  that  no  one  would 
more  deplore  a  conflict  than  Governor  Chase.  Mr.  Chase  sin 
cerely  desired  to  prevent  even  the  possibility  of  one,  and  his 
solution  was,  that  if  the  United  States  District  Attorney  at  Cin 
cinnati  should  be  instructed  to  drop  all  suits  against  citizens  of 
the  State,  a  similar  course  might  be  adopted  by  the  State 
toward  the  marshal  and  his  deputies  (who  had  undoubtedly  ex 
ceeded  their  powers),  and  the  excitement  might  be  thus  allayed 
without  a  breach  of  the  peace.  An  interview  was  arranged  ac- 

1  It  may  be  observed  here,  that  General  Cass  and  Governor  Chase  had  long  been 
sincere  and  intimate  friends ;  very  especially  during  the  senatorial  career  of  the 
latter,  when  General  Cass  was  accustomed  to  say  that  "  Chase  was  as  good  a  Demo 
crat  as  anybody,  but  that  he  was  radical  and  advanced  on  the  slavery  question." 
Upon  the  culmination  of  the  pro-slavery  pressure  on  Mr.  Buchanan  in  the  winter  of 
1860-'61,  Mr.  Chase  was  one  of  the  friends  who  urged  General  Cass  to  a  prompt 
withdrawal  from  the  Cabinet,  rather  than  support  a  position  fatal  to  his  reputation, 
and  certainly  abhorrent  to  his  principles  of  political  duty. 


182  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

cordingly,  between  the  President  and  Governor  Chase,  at  which 
the  Secretary  of  State  was  to  be  present,  and  on  the  next  day 
an  interview  took  place,  the  result  of  it  being  that  the  prose 
cutions  were  soon  after-  dropped  without  embarrassment  to 
either  jurisdiction. 

"  In  this  case,  as  in  the  Garner  case,"  wrote  Mr.  Chase  to 
Mr.  Trowbridge,  "  I  exerted  all  the  power  the  Constitution  gave 
me  for  the  vindication  of  the  rights  which  the  Constitution 
guaranteed. 

"  The  decision  of  the  United  States  District  Judge  in  this 
case,  like  that  in  the  Garner  case,  denied  the  right  of  the  State 
to  execute  its  own  criminal  process  or  civil  process,  where  the 
execution  interfered  with  the  claims  of  masters  under  the  fugi 
tive  slave  law. 

"  These  transactions  made  a  profound  impression  upon  the 
public  mind,  and  no  doubt  contributed  much  to  the  political 
revolution  which  took  place  in  1860." 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

.REORGANIZATION    OF    THE    MILITARY     SYSTEM    OF    OHIO CONVEN 
TION   OF    MILITARY    OFFICERS EXTRACT    FROM   COLONEL    PAR- 

SONS'S  REPORT  ON  THE  MILITARY  SYSTEM GROWING  IMPOR 
TANCE  OF  THE  NEW  ORGANIZATION ITS  EFFICACY  AND  USE 
FULNESS  IN  A  PERILOUS  CONJUNCTURE "THE  BRESLIN.  DEF 
ALCATION5' GIBSON'S  CONCEALMENT  OF  IT PROMPT  ACTION 

OF  GOVERNOR  CHASE NOMINATED  FOR  REELECTION DIFFI 
CULTIES  OF  THE  CANVASS HIS  GREAT  LABORS  IN  CONDUCTING 

IT SECOND  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS A  MODEL  PAPER JOHN 

BROWN'S  RAID  INTO  VIRGINIA GOVERNOR  WISE  FEARS  AN 

INVASION  FROM  OHIO HIS  LETTER  TO  GOVERNOR  CHASE 

GOVERNOR  CHASE'S  CHARACTERISTIC  REPLY — EXTRACT  FROM 
HIS  LAST  ANNUAL  MESSAGE REFLECTED  TO  UNITED  STATES 

SENATE. 

SOO]N"  after  becoming  Governor,  Mr.  Chase  turned  his  atten 
tion  to  a  reorganization  of  the  military  system  of  the 
State.  He  advised  the  legislation  necessary  to  effect  that  end, 
and  in  March,  185T,  an  act  was  passed  which  to  some  extent,  at 
any  rate,  met  the  requirements  suggested. 

He  promptly  appointed  his  military  staff,  and  took  immediate 
measures  for  the  organization  and  equipment  of  the  new  militia 
establishment. 

In  January,  1858,  a  State  Convention  of  the  officers  of  the 
volunteer  militia,  organized  under  the  act  referred  to,  was  held 
at  Columbus,  over  which  the  Governor  presided.  Positive  orders 
had  been  issued  that  arms  should  be  issued  only  to  uniformed 
organizations,  and  there  were  present  at  the  convention — as  dele- 


184  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

gates  from  the  various  divisions  and  brigades — one  hundred  and 
sixty-five  officers,  a  large  number  of  whom  were  afterward  effi 
cient  in  active  service  during  the  rebellion,  including  such  men 
as  Generals  William  H.  Lytle,  Jarnes  B.  Steadman,  Q.  A.  Jones, 
John  Ferguson,  and  James  H.  Cantwell. 

In  addressing  the  convention  Governor  Chase  said:  "Let 
me  assure  you,  gentlemen,  that  I  regard  an  organized  volunteer 
force — in  which  no  one  is  compelled  to  enlist,  and  which  depends 
for  its  strength  upon  the  individual  promptings  of  the  hearts  of 
those  who  compose  it — as  well  worthy  of  respect  as  it  is  in 
accordance  with  the  spirit  of  our  republican  institutions.  In 
such  an  organization  I  see  peace  secured  in  every  community, 
and  the  surest  guarantee  for  safety  against  invasion  from  without. 
In  assisting  to  complete  it,  you  will-  never  find  me  wanting." 

Responsive  to  the  views  of  the  Governor,  the  assembled  offi 
cers  resolved,  among  other  things :  "  That  as  our  Government  is 
one  in  which  the  people  are  their  own  rulers,  and  the  Govern 
ment  derives  its  support  from  the  people,  it  is  of  vital  importance 
that  standing  armies  of  magnitude  should  never  be  introduced ; 
and  that,  in  view  of  this  fundamental  republican  principle,  it  is 
necessary  that  a  citizen  soldiery  should  be  well  organized,  to  pro 
tect  the  rights  of  all  the  people  and  defend  the  Government  in 
all  times  of  danger;"  and  "that  the  experience  of  the  old 
States  and  of  our  larger  cities  proves  the  necessity  of  such  a 
military  organization ;  and  that,  while  seventeen  States  are,  by 
pecuniary  outlay,  fostering  and  strengthening  their  militia,  and 
that,  while  it  is  undeniable  that  their  cities  have  been  saved  from 
riot  and  untold  sacrifice  of  life  and  treasure  by  virtue  of  such 
organized  militia,  it  is  not  wise,  in  the  third  State  in  this  Union, 
to  stand  alone,  and  be  the  only  leading  State  to  refuse  pecuniary 
aid  to  those  who  are  ready  to  give  time  and  substance  to  the 
development  of  a  well-regulated  and  restricted  military  system." 

This  convention — which,  it  is  perhaps  proper  to  observe, 
was  composed  of  men  of  all  parties,  many  of  whom  had  served 
ably  and  well  upon  the  battle-fields  of  Mexico — through  its 
appropriate  committees,  drew  up  such  amendments  and  modifi 
cations  of  the  law  of  March,  1857,  as  were  warranted  by  expe 
rience  and  judgment.  The  principal  amendment  was  for  the 
establishment  of  a  military  fund,  to  be  appropriated  to  the  care 


REORGANIZATION  OF  STATE  MILITIA  SYSTEM.  185 

of  the  arms  of  the  State,  to  providing  armories  in  the  counties, 
and  to  the  purchase  of  camp-equipages  and  the  like,  for  the  volun 
teer  companies.  In  presenting  these  proposed  modifications  in 
the  Ohio  House  of  Kepresentatives,  at  the  session  of  1859,  Colo 
nel  Richard  C.  Parsons,  of  Cleveland,  offered  a  report  from 
the  Military  Committee  (prepared  upon  consultation  with  Gov 
ernor  Chase,  and  at  his  wish),  which  closed  in  these  words :  "  It 
has  passed  into  a  truism,  that  '  in  time  of  peace  we  should  pre 
pare  for  war.'  It  is  one  upon  which  we  should  act — act  in  view 
of  a  wise  provision  for  our  future — act  in  view  of  the  history  of 
the  past.  At  present  our  State  and  nation  are  blessed  with 
peace.  I  trust  this  state  of  things  will  long  continue.  But  the 
time  may  come  when  all  will  be  changed.  It  may  become 
necessary  for  our  nation,  and  for  our  State,  that  we  shall  appeal 
to  arms  for  the  protection  of  our  rights.  It  may  be  that  the 
time  will  come  when  a  well-disciplined,  perfectly  organized  and 
equipped  citizen  soldiery  shall  form  a  tower  of  strength.  If 
this  be  so,  I  have  faith  to  believe  that  in  that  day  the  (  Ohio 
State  Volunteers '  will  prove  true  to  the  trust  reposed  in  them. 
Identified,  as  they  are  and  will  be,  with  every  fibre  of  our  State 
government ;  fighting,  as  they  will  be,  for  all  that  they  hold 
dear;  strong  in  the  consciousness  of  numbers,  discipline  and 
education ;  backed  by  the  people  and  acknowledged  by  the  peo 
ple,  they  will  demonstrate  again  the  truth  that  it  is  our  country's 
militia,  instead  of  its  army,  that  we  can  rely  upon  in  case  of 
actual  danger." 

During  the  summer, of  1858  such  progress  was  made  tow 
ard  a  substantial  organization,  that  a  general  review  was  held 
by  the  Governor  on  the  3d  of  July — at  which  time  seven 
companies  of  artillery  paraded,  and  infantry  commands  were 
present  from  the  Eirst,  Second,  Third,  Eighth,  and  Seventeenth 
Divisions. 

At  the  close  of  the  year  the  Adjutant-General  of  the  State 
(Colonel  Carrington,  afterward  of  the  Eighteenth  United  States 
Infantry)  reported  the  force  to  be  one  hundred  and  fifty  compa 
nies,  and  that  ten  battalions  had  been  organized  and  equipped ; 
whereas,  prior  to  1857,  not  a  single  regiment  existed  in  the 
State. 

During  the  same  year  Governor  Chase  caused  his  adjutant- 


186  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

general  to  publish  a  volume  of  military  regulations;  and  to 
this,  in  1861,  by  authority  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
State,  tactics  were  added,  making  together  a  volume  of  more 
than  four  hundred  pages.  That  officer  was  also  sent  to  New 
York  and  Massachusetts,  to  attend  brigade  and  regimental 
reviews  and  field  exercises  in  those  States,  for  the  purpose  of 
making  practical  observations  and  securing  such  helps  as  would 
assist  in  bringing  the  Ohio  volunteer  militia  up  to  a  standard  of 
actual  efficiency. 

Of  the  character  of  this  volunteer  system,  thus  practically 
initiated  and  organized  by  Governor  Chase — in  despite  of  the 
foolish  and  persistent  ridicule  heaped  upon  it  by  the  enemies  of 
his  administration — and  of  its  great  usefulness  at  a  critical  and 
important  conjuncture  of  public  affairs,  it  is  only  necessary  to 
state  that  within  sixty  hours  after  receipt  of  President  Lincoln's 
first  call,  in  April,  1861,  for  seventy-five  thousand  volunteers — 
including  a  call  upon  Ohio  for  two  regiments — twenty  compa 
nies  of  this  command  were  started  for  Washington  by  Governor 
Dennison,  successor  to  Governor  Chase ;  and  that  notwithstand 
ing  a  partial  decline  of  the  volunteer  militia,  and  want  of  legis 
lative  support,  Governor  Dennison  was  enabled  to  send  into 
Western  Virginia  nine  full  regiments  of  State  militia  before  her 
first  United  States  volunteers  were  mustered  into  the  service. 

One  of  the  most  painful  of  the  duties  devolved  on  Governor 
Chase  during  his  first  term  grew  out  of  the  "  Breslin  defalca 
tion,"  and  its  concealment  by  Gibson,  Breslin's  successor  in  the 
important  office  of  Treasurer  of  State.  Breslin  had  misap 
plied,  during  his  incumbency,  nearly  half  a  million  of  dollars, 
— and  the  defalcation  was  adroitly  concealed  from  Governor 
Chase  and  all  the  other  State  officers,  for  almost  a  year  and  a 
half  after  they  came  into  office.  Gibson  succeeded  in  this 
by  representing  the  money  as  having  been  actually  received 
from  Breslin  (who  was  Gibson's  brother-in-law),  and  as  being 
actually  in  the  Treasury,  and  by  deceiving  the  legislative 
committees,  and  those  officers  of  the  State  whose  duty  it 
was  to  examine  into  its  condition.  Without  going  into  the 
methods  of  this  concealment,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  it  was 
successful  until  July,  1857,  when,  finding  it  impossible  to 
provide  sufficient  funds  to  pay  the  interest  on  the  State  debt 


THE  BKESLIN  DEFALCATION.  187 

accrued  and  due  in  that  month,  Gibson  disclosed  the  defalca 
tion  to  the  Auditor  of  the  State,  and  the  Auditor  communicated 
the  fact  to  the  Governor.  Mr.  Chase  at  once  went  to  the  Treas 
urer's  office,  and  after  some  conversation  which  more  precisely 
disclosed  the  facts,  insisted  upon  Gibson's  immediate  resignation. 
Gibson  denied  the  Governor's  authority  to  require  it.  The 
Governor  admitted  that  he  had  no  such  authority,  but  added 
that  as  Gibson  had  represented  the  money  which  had  been 
abstracted  as  having  been  actually  in  the  Treasury,  and  now 
admitted  that  it  was  not  there,  he  was — upon  his  own  showing 
— a  defaulter ;  and  the  Governor  said  he  could  not  accept  Gib 
son's  explanation  to  be  true  until  established  by  proof.  He 
went  on  to  say  that  the  constitution  of  the  State  authorized  the 
Governor  to  fill  any  State  office  made  vacant  by  disability,  and 
that  he  should  take  the  responsibility,  if  Gibson  did  not  resign, 
of  assuming  the  fact  of  the  defalcation  and  instituting  a  prose 
cution  against  him  as  the  author  of  it ;  the  first  step  in  which 
would  be,  his  arrest ;  and  of  considering  his  arrest  as  creating  a 
disability,  and  thereupon  of  appointing  his  successor.  Gibson 
sa^v  the  force  and  logic  of  the  Governor's  position,  and  asked 
time  to  consider  and  consult  his  legal  advisers.  Mr.  Chase  as 
sented,  and  fixed  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  (it  being  then 
about  eleven  in  the  morning)  as  the  hour  at  which  he  would 
expect  Gibson's  decision.  He  called  again  at  the  hour  agreed 
upon.  Gibson  meantime  had  consulted  with  his  friends  and 
his  lawyers;  their  counsel  was  indicated  by  his  action — he 
handed  the  Governor  his  resignation;  his  successor  was  ap 
pointed,  gave  the  necessary  bonds,  and  entered  upon  his  duties 
that  very  afternoon;  and  he  afterward,  in  another  office,  be 
came  also  a  defaulter,  and  died  by  suicide. 

Governor  Chase  took  upon  himself  this  summary  method  of 
action  as  a  duty  he  owed  to  the  State,  and  as  necessary  to  pro 
tect  its  interests,  and  incidentally  to  defend  the  party  which  had 
put  him  into  the  Executive  office  from  virtual  responsibility  for 
the  defalcation.  He  saved  the  credit  of  the  State  by  taking 
immediate  measures  to  provide — and  did  provide — money  for 
the  payment  of  the  July  interest. 

Soon  after  this  event,  Mr.  Chase  was  again  nominated  for 
Governor ;  this  time  by  acclamation,  and  seriously  against  his 


188  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

wishes.  The  election  of  Mr.  Buchanan  in  the  fall  of  the  pre 
ceding  year ;  the  lassitude  and  depression  which  usually  follow 
defeat  in  a  presidential  campaign ;  and  above  all,  the  defalca 
tion — which  the  enemies  of  his  administration  did  not  hesitate 
to  charge  upon  the  Governor  himself — made  the  canvass  for  re 
election  peculiarly  disagreeable  and  difficult.  He  was  obliged 
to  go  through  the  State,  and  everywhere  explain  the  facts  to  the 
people.  In  effect  he  conducted  the  canvass  entirely  alone,  for 
there  was  no  congressional  election  in  that  year  to  awaken  an 
interest  in  national  topics  and  secure  the  help  of  candidates  for 
Congress  pleading  their  own  cause  before  their  own  constituen 
cies.  There  was  an  American  candidate  in  the  field  as  before, 
and  he  was  opposed  on  the  Democratic  side  by  a  man  of  great 
energy  and  ability — Payne,  of  Cuyahoga.  But  despite  all  op 
posing  influences,  he  was  reflected  by  a  small  majority — less 
than  fifteen  hundred — and  ran  somewhat  ahead  of  the  average 
of  the  ticket. 

Some  conception  of  the  vast  labor  he  performed  during  this 
second  canvass  may  be  gathered  from  a  letter  written  to  his 
youngest  daughter  under  date  Columbus,  September  13,  1857 : 

"  Since  I  wrote  you  last,  I  have  traveled  much  and  have  made  many 
speeches — partly  about  the  defalcation ;  partly  about  slavery,  and  partly 
about  other  things.  First,  I  went  to  Loveland ;  then  up  across  the  coun 
try  to  Marietta,  traveling  all  night  to  get  there  (Tuesday  night  of  week 
before  last) — and  where  I  made  a  speech  to  a  large  crowd  of  people.  I 
rode  about  twenty  miles  the  same  evening  to  Coolville,  in  Athens  County, 
where  I  made  another  speech.  I  went  next  morning  to  Pomeroy,  and 
made  two  speeches ;  one  in  the  forenoon  and  another  in  the  afternoon. 
The  next  morning  I  went  in  a  carriage  to  Gallipolis,  where  I  spoke  to  the 
people  in  the  court-house.  My  next  speech  was  to  be  made  at  Ironton — 
more  than  fifteen  miles  distant — the  next  day.  "We  had  to  go  by  carriage, 
and  started  immediately  after  I  was  through  my  speech  at  Gallipolis.  The 
road  was  very  rough ;  and  two  miles  from  the  town  one  of  the  horses 
became  so  lame  that  he  could  not  travel,  and  we  had  to  return  on  foot. 
We  procured  another  pair  of  horses ;  started  again  and  traveled  all  night, 
without  stopping,  and  even  then  did  not  reach  Ironton  till  about  nine 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  There  I  made  a  speech  in  the  afternoon ;  and 
you  may  depend  upon  that  I  was  glad  the  next  clay  was  Sunday,  when  I 
could  rest  and  go  to  church  instead  of  speaking.  Monday  came  but  too 
soon,  and  I  had  to  go  to  Portsmouth,  where  I  went  in  a  carriage,  and  made 
a  speech  in  the  market-place.  The  next  day  I  went  to  Jackson  by  rail- 


SECOND  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS.  189 

road ;  and  the  next  day  by  carriage  to  Piketon,  and  made  a  speech  in  each 
place.  From  Piketon  I  was  compelled  to  make  another  long,  long  jour 
ney  by  carriage  to  West  Union  in  Adams  County.  "We  started  at  four 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  and  got  to  West  Union  at  four  o'clock  the  next 
morning.  I  made  a  speech  here  to  twelve  or  fifteen  hundred  people;  and 
immediately  afterward  I  went  along  with  an  old  friend  named  King,  to 
Decatur,  where  I  spoke  in  a  church  at  night.  When  I  was  done  I  had 
still  to  ride  twelve  miles  to  Mr.  King's,  about  two  miles  from  Georgetown, 
where  I  spoke  the  next  day  and  staid  all  night.  The  next  day  after  that 
was  Saturday,  and  I  went  onward  to  Batavia  and  there  made  my  last 
speech  for  the  week — and  then  rode  over  to  Milford,  and  took  the  cars, 
and  reached  home  between  ten  and  eleven  at  night.  To  morrow  I  go  to 
Cincinnati." 

Governor  Chase's  second  inaugural  address  was  delivered  on 
the  llth  of  January,  1858,  and  is  a  model  paper.  "  The  will 
of  the  people,"  he  said,  addressing  himself  according  to  official 
forms,  to  his  fellow-citizens  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives,  "  expressed  in  the  mode  prescribed  by  the  constitu 
tion,  has  summoned  me,  for  the  second  time,  to  the  duties  and 
responsibilities  of  the  chief  magistracy  of  Ohio;  and  I  have 
now,  in  your  presence,  taken  upon  myself  the  solemn  obligation 
of  an  oath  to  perform  them  faithfully. 

"  During  the  two  years  since  I  was  first  honored  with  this 
trust,  it  has  been  my  constant  endeavor  to  acquit  myself  of  it 
as  became  a  citizen  devoted  to  the  institutions  of  this  State,  and 
bound  by  every  obligation  of  honor  and  gratitude  to  the  faith 
ful  service  of  the  people.  I  may  not  say  that  I  have  committed 
no  errors.  Doubtless  some  things  have  been  omitted  which 
might  have  been  done,  and  some  things  done  which  might  have 
been  better  done.  But  I  may  say,  and  it  does  not  seem  unfit 
that  I  should  say,  here  in  this  presence — fearing  no  contradic 
tion  of  any  truthful  man  who  knows  the  truth — that  all  my  acts 
have  been  designed  to  promote  the  highest  interests  of  the  State, 
and  that  my  best  faculties  and  my  most  earnest  endeavors  have 
been  entirely  and  unremittingly  devoted  to  her  service. 

"Assuming  now,  once  more,  in  obedience  to  the  popular 
voice,  this  responsible  trust,  my  past  must  stand  sole  sponsor  for 
my  future.  Larger  experience  and  better  information  will, 
I  trust,  enable  me  to  accomplish  something  more  for  the 
public  good  than  has  been  hitherto  effected ;  but  my  aims, 


190          LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

my  purposes,  and  my  principles  of  action  must  remain  un 
changed. 

"  You  will  not  expect  of  me,  on  this  occasion,  any  discussion 
of  civil  or  political  questions.  I  have  already  made  known  to 
you  my  views  in  relation  to  public  affairs.  That  these  views 
will  meet  your  concurrence  in  all  respects,  it  would  be  presump 
tion  in  me  to  anticipate ;  but  there  is  one  point  at  least,  where 
all  our  judgments,  all  our  purposes,  and  all  our  exertions  may 
well  join.  The  common  good  should  be,  and  I  trust  will  be, 
our  common  aim.  Under  our  fortunate  policy,  no  king — no 
aristocracy — no  arbitrary  power — no  privileged  class — can  claim 
to  be  the  State.  The  welfare,  the  honor,  the  advancement  in  all 
things  good  and  noble  of  the  State,  is  nothing  else  than  the  wel 
fare,  the  honor,  the  advancement  of  the  people  and  the  whole 
people.  To  these  great  objects,  however  we  may  differ  as  to 
the  best  means  of  promoting  them,  we  may  well  join  in  address 
ing  the  most  strenuous  exertions  of  our  highest  powers. 

"  It  is  not  our  part,  happily,  to  lay  the  foundations  of  insti 
tutions.  That  work  is  done,  and  well  done,  to  our  hands.  It 
is  our  singular  felicity  to  be  citizens  of  the  first  State  of  the 
Union,  organized,  through  the  wise  providence  of  the  founders 
of  the  republic,  upon  the  '  fundamental  principles  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty,5  which  they  declared  to  be  the  basis  of  all 
American  law  and  all  American  constitutions.  In  the  organi 
zation  of  other  States,  unfriendly  circumstances  had  permitted 
only  the  partial  application  of  these  principles.  In  the  organi 
zation  of  this  no  such  circumstances  interposed  their  evil  influ 
ences.  The  institutions  of  Ohio  were  formed  in  precise  har 
mony  with  the  ideal  of  a  State  as  it  existed  in  the  minds  of  the 
master-builders  of  the  Confederacy  and  of  the  Union.  This 
ideal  demanded,  first  of  all,  the  absolute  freedom  of  eveiy  indi 
vidual  guaranteed  and  secured  by  impartial  law ;  next,  inviola 
bility  of  conscience,  and  just  protection  to  all  forms  of  worship 
and  all  religious  organizations ;  then,  the  sacred  observance  of 
compacts ;  then,  the  promotion  of  religion,  morality,  and  knowl 
edge,  by  universal  education.  There  was  nothing  narrow,  noth 
ing  illiberal,  nothing  unjust,  in  this  ideal.  It  welcomed  the  im 
migrant  to  the  freest  participation  with  the  home-born  in  the 
inestimable  blessings  of  popular  institutions.  It  pledged  the 


JOHN  BROWN'S  INVASION  OF  VIRGINIA.  191 

State,  to  be  founded  under  it,  to  perpetual  union  with  her  sis 
ter  States.  It  'established  sovereignty  of  the  people  upon  the 
indestructible — and  the  only  indestructible — foundation,  that  of 

the  EIGHTS  OF   MATT. 

"  Organized  under  these  auspices  and  in  accordance  with  this 
ideal,  Ohio  may  justly  be  styled  the  model  State  of  the  Amer 
ican  Union.  It  is  an  honorable — a  gratifying  distinction.  Let 
it  be  our  care  that  its  lustre  be  sullied  by  no  act  or  omission  of 
ours.  Upon  the  soil  thus  consecrated  to  liberty  and  union — 
upon  the  foundations  thus  wisely  laid  of  equality  and  justice — 
let  us  go  on,  in  humble  dependence  upon  Divine  favor,  to 
build  yet  broader  and  higher,  the  noble  edifice  of  a  truly  demo 
cratic  and  truly  republican  State ;  never  forgetting  that  man 
is  more  than  institutions,  and  rights  the  sole  vital  principle  of 
law." 

In  the  last  year  of  Mr.  Chase's  service  as  Governor,  John 
Brown's  invasion  of  Virginia  shocked  and  astonished  the  coun 
try.  In  the  South  it  aroused  fearful  forebodings  of  danger,  and 
reports  spread  rapidly  through  Virginia,  and  indeed  through  all 
the  slave  States,  that  large  bodies  of  men  were  being  organized 
in  Ohio  and  the  free  States,  for  the  purpose  of  rescuing  Brown 
and  his  associates  from  their  captors  ;  or,  in  case  they  were  exe 
cuted,  to  seize  citizens  of  Virginia  and  hold  them  as  hostages. 
Governor  "Wise,  of  Virginia,  thought  these  reports  of  sufficient 
importance  to  justify  official  action.  He  accordingly  addressed 
a  letter  to  President  Buchanan,  stating  the  apprehensions  exist 
ing  in  consequence  of  the  reported  organizations,  and  declared 
that,  "  if  another  invasion  should  assail  the  State  of  Virginia,  he 
should  pursue  the  invaders  into  any  territory,  and  punish  them 
whenever  they  could  be  reached  by  arms."  Governor  Wise  in 
closed  a  copy  of  this  letter  to  Governor  Chase,  and  repeated  his 
purpose  to  pursue  invaders  into  adjoining  States.  "  Necessity," 
he  said,  "  may  compel  us  to  do  so.  But  if  it  does,  you  may  be 
assured  that  it  will  be  done  with  no  disrespect  to  the  sovereignty 
of  your  State ;  but  this  State  expects  the  confederate  duty  to  be 
observed  of  guarding  your  territory  from  becoming  dangerous 
to  our  peace  and  safety,  by  affording  places  of  depot  and  ren 
dezvous  to  lawless  desperadoes  who  may  seek  to  make  war  upon 
our  people."  Governor  Chase's  reply  was  characteristic : 


192  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

"  COLUMBUS,  December  1,  1859. 

"  SIK  :  Your  letter  of  the  25th  ultimo,  post-marked  26th,  together  with 
a  copy  of  one  of  the  same  date  addressed  to  the  President,  was  received 
yesterday.  No  intelligence  other  than  that  contained  in  these  letters  has 
reached  me  of  any  such  preparations  as  are  described  in  them,  and  the  let 
ters  themselves  convey  no  such  information  in  respect  to  place  or  persons 
as  is  necessary  to  enable  the  authorities  of  this  State,  in  the  absence  of 
other  intelligence,  to  interpose  with  any  certainty  or  effect.  Whenever  it 
shall  be  made  to  appear,  either  by  evidence  transmitted  by  you  or  other 
wise,  that  unlawful  combinations  are  being  formed  by  any  persons  or  at 
any  place  in  Ohio  for  the  invasion  of  Virginia,  or  for  the  commission  of 
crimes  against  her  people,  it  will  undoubtedly  become  the  duty  of  the  Ex 
ecutive  to  use  whatever  power  he  may  possess  to  break  up  such  combina 
tions  and  defeat  their  unlawful  purposes ;  and  that  duty,  it  need  not  be 
doubted,  will  be  promptly  performed. 

-'  I  observe  with  regret  an  intimation  in  your  letter  that  necessity  may 
compel  the  authorities  of  Virginia  to  pursue  invaders  of  her  jurisdiction 
into  the  territories  of  adjoining  States.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  no  circum 
stances  will  arise  creating  in  their  opinion  such  a  necessity.  Laws  of  the 
United  States,  as  well  as  the  laws  of  Ohio,  indicate  the  mode  in  which 
persons  charged  with  crime  in  another  State  and  escaping  into  this  may 
be  demanded  and  must  be  surrendered ;  and  the  people  of  this  State  will 
require  from  her  authorities  the  punctual  fulfillment  of  every  obligation  to 
the  other  members  of  the  Union.  They  cannot  consent,  however,  to  the 
invasion  of  her  territory  by  armed  bodies  from  other  States,  even  for  the 
purpose  of  pursuing  and  arresting  fugitives  from  justice. 

"I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

"  Very  respectfully  yours, 

"  S.  P.  CHASE. 
"  His  Excellency  HENRY  A.  "Wiss,  Governor,  etc.,  etc.,  etc." 

No  further  correspondence  took  place  on  the  subject ;  the 
reported  organizations  being  of  course  false. 

In  his  last  annual  message,  delivered  to  the  Legislature  on 
the  2d  of  January,  1860,  Governor  Chase  said :  "  I  doubt  not 
that  I  expressed  the  sentiments  of  our  common  constituents, 
when  I  declared  my  conviction  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Execu 
tive  authorities  of  Ohio  to  exercise  whatever  power  the  law  may 
vest  in  them  for  the  suppression  of  unlawful  combination  against 
the  peace  and  safety  of  other  members  of  the  Federal  Union  ; 
and  that  the  people  of  Ohio,  while  they  will  suffer  no  invasion 
of  their  own  territory,  will  countenance  no  invasion  of  the  ter 
ritory  of  other  States ;  but,  expecting  from  them  the  fulfillment 


EXTRACT  FROM  LAST  ANNUAL  MESSAGE.  193 

of  every  constitutional  obligation,  will  require   of  their  own 
authorities  the  prompt  performance  of  reciprocal  duties. 

"  While  we  will  not  disavow  just  admiration  of  noble  quali 
ties  by  whomsoever  displayed,  we  must  not  the  less  but  rather 
the  more  earnestly  condemn  all  inroads  into  States,  not  merely 
at  peace  with  us,  but  united  to  us  by  the  bond  of  political  union, 
and  all  attempts  to  excite  within  their  borders  servile  insurrec 
tions,  necessarily  tending  to  involve  the  country  in  the  calami 
ties  of  civil  as  well  as  servile  war. 

"  That  a  spirit  of  distrust  and  alienation  has  arisen  in  the 
country,  it  were  idle  to  deny.  That  it  is  not  shared  in  any  great 
degree  by  the  masses  in  either  section  is,  I  trust,  equally  true. 
The  people  desire  union  and  concord,  not  discord  and  disunion. 

"  Claiming  no  absolute  exemption  from  blame  in  behalf  of 
the  free  States,  we  cannot  admit  their  liability  to  exclusive  cen 
sure.  In  repeated  instances,  without  pretense  of  justification, 
the  territory  of  Ohio  has  been  clandestinely  entered  and  peace 
ful  inhabitants,  guilty  of  no  crime  but  color,  have  been  cruelly 
kidnapped.  The  fugitive  slave  act — necessarily  repugnant  to 
public  sentiment j  and  believed  by  a  large  majority  to  be  un 
constitutional  in  some  of  its  conspicuous  provisions — has  been 
executed  within  her  limits  with  circumstances  of  aggravation 
which  could  not  fail  to  excite  the  deepest  feeling ;  and  cases 
have  not  been  wanting  where  her  citizens,  traveling  on  lawful 
business  in  slave  States,  on  mere  suspicion  of  obnoxious  senti 
ments,  have  been  subjected  to  espionage  and  indignity,  to  arrest 
and  imprisonment.  To  these  particular  causes  of  complaint 
must  be  added  the  general  grievance  of  the  repeal  of  the  Mis 
souri  prohibition,  manifesting  the  determination  of  a  large  ma 
jority  of  the  slaveholding  class  to  extend  slavery  throughout 
the  national  Territories. 

"Notwithstanding  these  causes  of  complaint,  and  in  confi 
dent  expectation  of  their  ultimate  removal,  through  the  influence 
of  better  information  and  juster  sentiments,  the  people  of  Ohio 
have  held  fast  to  the  Constitution  and  the  Union ;  ever  respect 
ing  all  the  rights  of  all  the  States  and  of  all  the  citizens  of  the 
States  ;  never  resisting  with  illegal  force  even  the  execution  of 
the  fugitive  slave  act  by  Federal  officers  acting  under  legal 
warrants. 

13 


194  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  Ohio  lias  littered  no  menace  of  disunion  when  the  Ameri 
can  people  have  seen  fit  to  intrust  the  powers  of  the  Federal 
Government  to  citizens  of  other  political  views  than  those  of 
a  majority  of  her  citizens.  ~No  threats  of  disunion  in  a  similar 
contingency  by  citizens  of  other  States  will  excite  in  her  any 
sentiments  save  those  of  sorrow  and  reprobation.  They 
will  not  move  her  from  her  course.  She  will  neither  dissolve 
the  Union  herself,  nor  consent  to  its  dissolution  by  others. 
Faithful  to  the  covenant  of  the  ordinance,  she  will  resist  the 
extension  of  slavery  ;  confirmed  in  the  principles  of  the  Consti 
tution,  she  will  oppose  its  nationalization.  True  to  the  faith  in 
which  her  youth  was  nurtured,  and  calm  in  the  consciousness  of 
her  matured  strength,  she  will  abide  in  the  Union,  and,  under 
the  Constitution,  maintain  liberty. 

"  Let  us  hope  that  good  counsel  may  yet  prevail ;  •  that  differ 
ences  may  be  composed  by  a  return  to  the  faith  of  the  fathers 
and  to  the  original  policy  of  the  republic ;  and  that  our  whole 
country,  thus  relieved  from  existing  causes  of  dissension,  may 
once  more  present  to  the  admiration  of  the  world  the  spectacle 
of  a  great  and  prosperous  community  of  united  States,  protected 
in  their  industry  and  defended  in  their  rights  by  the  equal  laws 
and  impartial  administration  of  State  and  Federal  Governments. 
To  this  end,  at  least,  no  effort  of  ours  will  be  wanting." 

On  the  2d  of  February,  1860,  Mr.  Chase  was  reflected  to 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States ;  the  people  of  Ohio  thus,  for 
the  third  time  since  his  first  election,  in  1849,  and  by  decisive 
votes,  indorsing  all  his  public  career.  His  election  was  the 
spontaneous  work  of  the  Republican  party,  and  was  unsought 
by  any  act  of  Mr.  Chase,  and  was  thoroughly  gratifying  to  the 
Republicans  throughout  the  country.  Out  of  one  hundred  and 
thirty-five  votes  cast  in  joint  convention  of  the  Legislature,  Mr. 
Chase  received  seventy-six. 


CHAPTEE   XXIII. 

PRESIDENTIAL  CANVASS  OF  1856,  AND  IN  I860 WANT  OF  INFLU 
ENCE  OF  OHIO  DELEGATION  IN  CHICAGO  CONVENTION ELEC 
TION  OF  ME.  LINCOLN WITHDRAWAL  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

FROM   THE   UNION LETTER   OF   MR.  CHASE   TO  RANDALL    HUNT 

GOES  TO  SPRINGFIELD  BY  INVITATION  OF  MR.  LINCOLN — IN 
TERVIEWS  WITH  MR.  LINCOLN CONDITIONAL  OFFER  OF  TREAS 
URY  DEPARTMENT LETTER  TO  GOVERNOR  SEWARD PEACE 

CONFERENCE     CALLED     BY     LEGISLATURE     OF     VIRGINIA MR. 

CHASE  ATTENDS  AS  A  DELEGATE  FROM  OHIO SPEECH  IN  THE 

CONFERENCE THE  CONFERENCE  A  FAILURE APPOINTMENT  AS 

SECRETARY   OF   THE   TREASURY RESIGNS    HIS    SENATORSHIP. 

MANY  Republicans  throughout  the  country  were  earnestly 
in  favor  of  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Chase  for  the  presi 
dency  so  early  as  1856.  But  slavery-conservatism  was  at  that 
time  yet  predominant  in  the  party,  and  the  party  itself  was  not 
dominant  in  the  nation,  nor  was  it  likely  to  become  so  except 
by  judicious  concessions  both  as  to  candidates  and  platform. 
The  nomination  of  a  statesman  of  the  avowed  convictions  and 
character  of  Mr.  Chase,  was  forbidden  upon  every  principle  of 
party  expediency,  and  although  some  leading  men  thought  it 
would  be  better  to  do  otherwise,  the  Philadelphia  Convention  of 
1856  presented  to  the  country  the  name  of  Colonel  John  C. 
Fremont.  The  alliteration  of  "  Free  speech,  free  men,  and  Fre 
mont,"  it  was  believed  would  be  weightier  with  the  mass  of  the 
voters  of  the  country  than  any  guarantee  of  practical  ability,  su 
periority  of  character,  and  long  public  experience.  No  doubt 
the  convention  was  right.  But  if  the  convention  did  not  present 


196  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

the  name  of  a  known  capable  statesman  as  the  standard-bearer  of 
the  party,  or  that  of  a  citizen  strongly  identified  with  the  advo 
cacy  of  its  fundamental  ideas,  it  made  some  measure  of  compen 
sation  for  this  important  neglect,  by  the  boldness  of  its  avowals 
upon  the  paramount  question  before  the  country.  It  declared, 
as  the  basis  of  its  action,  unequivocal  hostility  to  slavery  and  sla 
very-extension.  It  resolved,  "  That,  with  our  republican  fathers, 
we  hold  it  to  be  a  self-evident  truth,  that  all  men  are  endowed 
with  inalienable  rights  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi 
ness  ;  that  the  primary  object  and  ulterior  design  of  our  Federal 
Government  were,  to  secure  these  rights  to  all  persons  within 
its  exclusive  jurisdiction;  and  that,  as  our  republican  fathers, 
when  they  had  abolished  slavery  in  all  our  national  territory, 
ordained  that  no  person  should  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or 
property,  without  due  process  of  law,  it  becomes  our  duty  to 
maintain  this  provision  of  the  Constitution  against  all  attempts 
to  violate  it  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  slavery  in  any  terri 
tory  of  the  United  States,  by  positive  legislation  prohibiting  its 
existence  therein ;  that  we  deny  the  authority  of  Congress,  of 
a  territorial  Legislature,  of  any  individual  or  association  of  indi 
viduals,  to  give  legal  existence  to  slavery  in  any  Territory  of  the 
United  States,  while  the  present  Constitution  shall  be  main 
tained  ; "  and  "  that  the  Constitution  confers  upon  Congress 
sovereign  power  over  the  Territories  of  the  United  States  for 
their  government ;  and  that  in  the  exercise  of  this  power,  it  is 
both  the  right  and  the  duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit  in  the 
Territories  those  twin  relics  of  barbarism  —  polygamy  and 
slavery." 

The  Democratic  party  of  1856,  "  claiming  fellowship  with 
and  desiring  the  cooperation  of  all  who  regard  the  preservation 
of  the  Union  under  the  Constitution  as  the  paramount  issue,  and 
repudiating  all  sectional  parties  and  platforms  concerning  domes 
tic  slavery,"  recognized  and  adopted  the  principles  embodied  in 
the  organic  laws  establishing  the  Territories  of  Kansas  and  Ne 
braska,  "  as  embodying  the  only  sound  and  safe  solution  of  the 
slavery  question,  upon  which  the  great  national  idea  of  the  peo 
ple  of  this  whole  country  can  repose  in  its  determined  conserva 
tion  of  the  Union,  and  non-interference  with  slavery  in  the  Ter 
ritories  or  the  District  of  Columbia." 


THE  PRESIDENCY  IN   1856  AND   1860.  197 

The  "  American  party  "  interjected  a  candidate  and  platform 
into  the  canvass ;  but  with  no  expectation  of  success. 

Although  Mr.  Chase  had  another  preference,  he  supported 
Colonel  Fremont  cordially  and  effectively.  Ohio  gave  a  splen 
did  majority  for  the  national  Republican  ticket ;  but  the  result  of 
the  election  showed  the  continued  great  vitality  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party.  Mr.  Buchanan  received  a  total  of  1,838,169  votes, 
Colonel  Fremont  1,341,264,  and  Mr.  Fillmore  874,534.  Of  the 
electoral  votes  Mr.  Buchanan  had  174 ;  a  clear  majority  of  60. 

During  the  four  years  immediately  following  upon  the  elec 
tion  of  Mr.  Buchanan  the  name  of  Mr.  Chase  grew  more  familiar 
to  the  people  of  the  country,  and  as  the  time  drew  near  for  the 
nomination  of  a  Republican  candidate  in  1860,  attracted  a  wide 
attention,  and  his  supporters  were  to  be  found  in  every  congres 
sional  district  in  the  free  States,  and  he  was  not  without  friends 
even  in  some  slave  districts.  The  steady  and  excellent  course  of 
his  administration  in  Ohio  was  warmly  admired  by  the  Republi 
cans,  and  had  extorted  praise  even  from  political  enemies.  The 
position  of  the  Republican  party,  however,  was  not  materially 
changed  from  what  it  had  been  in  1856 ;  it  did  not  command  a 
majority  of  the  voters  of  the  country,  and  indeed  had  made  no 
decisive  accessions  of  strength  since  its  first  attempt  in  the  presi 
dential  field.  Conservatism  still  held  sway  in  its  councils ;  and 
the  success  of  the  party  in  1860  as  in  1856  depended,  therefore, 
upon  a  judicious  selection  of  candidates  and  a  defensible  plat 
form  ;  but  more  than  either  upon  divisions  in  the  camps  of  its 
enemies.  These  divisions  happened,  and  are  too  essentially  a 
part  of  the  history  of  the  war  of  the  rebellion  to  need  recapitu 
lation  here.  • 

The  Republican  State  Convention  of  Ohio,  called  to  elect 
senatorial  delegates  to  the  National  Convention  to  be  held  in 
Chicago  in  May,  was  held  in  March,  1860,  and  declared  the  pref 
erence  of  the  Republicans  of  the  State  for  the  nomination  of 
Governor  Chase.  This  expression  of  preference  was  an  entirely 
deliberate  proceeding,  having  been  made  upon  a  call  and  vote  of 
the  counties  separately ;  the  vote  standing,  for  such  expression 
three  hundred  and  eighty-five,  and  against  it  sixty-nine.  But 
the  Convention  chose  only  four  delegates  at  large,  or  senato 
rial  delegates  so  called ;  the  congressional  delegates  being  chosen 


198  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

by  conventions  held  in  the  several  Congress  districts.  By  this 
arrangement  opportunity  was  given  for  the  friends  of  other  can 
didates  to  excite  divisions,  and  to  secure  in  some  of  the  districts 
delegates  unfriendly  to  Mr.  Chase. 

"When  the  Chicago  Convention  met,  the  disagreement  of  the 
Ohio  delegation  was  utterly  destructive  of  its  influence.  "With 
out  its  united  action,  there  was  little  ground  to  expect  for  Mr. 
Chase  the  support  of  delegations  from  other  States ;  and  in  any 
event  his  nomination  was  perhaps  unlikely,  but  he  had  numerous 
friends  in  the  convention  who,  had  the  Ohio  delegation  shown 
a  compact  front,  would  have  united  to  secure  his  nomination. 
But  union  was  impossible.  Mr.  Chase  received  a  respectable 
support,  notwithstanding:  on  the  first  ballot  forty-nine  votes, 
on  the  second  forty-two  and  a  half,  and  on  the  third  twenty-four 
and  a  half. 

The  nomination  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  entirely  satisfactory  to 
Mr.  Chase ;  and  in  the  bitter  and  protracted  canvass  which  fol 
lowed,  he  took  an  active  and  important  part. 

Although  preceding  the  election,  none  doubted  that  Mr.  Lin 
coln  would  be  chosen,  the  event  itself  was  followed  by  a  vast  in 
crease  in  the  excitement  and  agitation  already  prevailing  through 
out  the  country.  In  the  South  the  people  proceeded  to  prompt 
action,  with  a  view  to  immediate  disunion.  South  Carolina  led 
the  way.  "  No  sooner,"  says  Mr.  Pollard  in  his  history  of  "  The 
Lost  Cause,"  "  had  the  telegraph  announced  the  election  of 
Abraham  Lincoln1  President  of  the  United  States,  than  the 
State  of  South  Carolina  prepared  for  a  deliberate  withdrawal 
from  the  Union.  Considering  the  argument  as  fully  exhausted, 
she  determined  to  resume  the  exercise  of  her  rights  as  a  sovereign 
State ;  and  for  this  purpose  her  Legislature  called  a  convention. 
The  convention  assembled  in  Columbia  on  the  17th  of  Decem 
ber,  1860.  Its  sessions  were  held  in  a  church,  over  which  floated 
a  flag  bearing  the  device  of  a  palmetto-tree,  with  an  open  Bible 
at  its  trunk,  with  the  inscription:  'God  is  our  refuge  and 

1  Before  the  war  presidential  electors  of  South  Carolina  were  chosen  by  the  Leg 
islature  of  the  State,  on  the  same  day  ip  which  presidential  electors  were  elected  by 
the  people  in  the  other  States.  The  Legislature  remained  in  session  in  1860  after 
meeting  for  this  purpose,  and  passed  resolutions  calling  a  secession  convention- 
passed  in  the  Senate  on  the  9th  of  November  and  in  the  House  on  the  12th. 


SECESSION —LETTER  TO  RANDALL  HUNT.  199 

strength,  a  very  present  help  in  time  of  trouble ;  therefore  we 
will  not  fear  though  the  earth  be  removed  and  though  the  moun 
tains  be  carried  into  the  sea ;  the  Lord  of  hosts  with  us,  the  God 
of  Jacob  is  our  refuge.'  On  the  18th  the  convention  adjourned 
to  Charleston,  and  on  the  20th  passed  the  memorable  ordinance 
of  secession,  concluding  with  the  declaration  that  the  "  Union 
now  subsisting  between  South  Carolina  and  other  States  under 
the  name  of  The  United  States  of  America  is  hereby  dissolved." 
Other  of  the  South  Atlantic  States,  though  not  so  rapid  in  action 
as  South  Carolina,  betrayed  unmistakably  the  temper  of  their 
people  to  imitate  her  example.  They  were  resolved  upon  dis 
union  ;  peaceably  if  possible,  but  by  war  if,  to  effect  it,  war  should 
become  necessary. 

Mr.  Chase  was  a  careful  and  anxious  observer  of  the  progress 
of  events,  but  at  no  time  faltered  in  his  conviction  that  the  real 
interests  of  the  country  demanded  that  no  further  extension  of 
slavery  should  be  allowed,  nor  in  his  resolution  to  prevent,  so 
far  as  rested  with  him,  a  further  extension  of  the  slave-system ; 
though  willing,  at  the  same  time,  to  give  to  the  South  just  as 
surance  and  guarantees  that  no  invasions  of  existing  rights  were 
meditated  or  intended. 

Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Randall  Hunt,  a  Citizen  of  New  Orleans. 

"  COLUMBUS,  November  80,  1860. 

" .  .  .  .  Would  to  Heaven  that  it  were  in  my  power  to  compose  the 
strife  which  now  disturbs  the  peace  of  our  country !  Certainly,  there  is  in 
my  heart  no  feeling  but  good-will  to  every  part  of  it. 

"  But  what  can  be  done  ?  I  mean  what  can  be  done  by  a  private  citi 
zen  ?  If  the  executive  power  of  the  nation  were  in  my  hands,  I  should 
know  what  to  do.  I  would  maintain  the  Union,  support  the  Constitution, 
and  enforce  the  laws. 

"  And  here  let  me  call  your  attention  to  an  omission  in  the  published 
report  of  my  Covington  speech.  After  stating,  as  my  chief  objection  to 
the  Bell-Everett  platform,  that  it  proposed  nothing  which  all  parties  did 
not  agree  to,  and  therefore  was  inadequate  to  the  demands  of  the  time,  I 
went  on  to  say  that  what  seemed  to  me  the  distinguishing  characteristic 
of  the  party  supporting  Mr.  Bell,  and  also  of  that  party  supporting  Mr. 
Douglas,  in  the  South,  was  a  true  devotion  to  the  Union  and  a  resolute 
determination  to  sustain  it,  against  the  designs  of  disunion  entertained  by 
a  portion — though  I  hoped  not  a  very  large  portion — of  the  supporters  of 
Mr.  Breckenridge :  so  that  in  the  South,  whatever  might  be  the  case  in  the 


200  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

North,  their  platform  did  propose  a  practical  issue  on  a  practical  question, 
and  that  on  that  issue  all  my  sympathies  were  with  them. 

"  I  abhor  the  very  idea  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union.  If  I  were  Presi 
dent,  I  would  indeed  exhaust  every  expedient  of  forbearance  consistent 
with  safety.  But  at  all  hazards  and  against  all  opposition  the  laws  of  the 
Union  should  be  enforced,  through  the  judiciary  if  practicable,  but,  against 
rebellion,  by  all  necessary  means.  The  question  of  slavery  should  not  be 
permitted  to  influence  my  action  one  way  or  another. 

"  But  while  I  would  thus  act  when  circumstances  should  demand  action, 
I  would  not  shut  my  eyes  to  the  fact,  manifest  to  everybody,  that  it  is  from 
the  slavery  question  that  our  chief  dangers  arise,  and  I  would  direct  what 
ever  influence  I  might  possess  to  an  adjustment  of  it — not  by  any  new 
compromise,  for  new  compromises  can  only  breed  new  dangers — but  by 
honest  provision  for  the  honest  fulfillment  of  all  constitutional  obligations 
connected  with  it. 

"  Nothing  to  me  seems  clearer  than  that,  under  the  Constitution,  slavery 
is  a  State  institution,  and  that  much  embarrassment  would  have  been 
avoided  had  this  principle  never  been  lost  sight  of.  It  would  have  assured 
peace  to  the  States  in  which  slavery  exists  by  uniting  almost  all  men  of  all 
opinions  against  all  aggression  upon  them.  Let  this  principle  be  now, 
once  more,  frankly  recognized  and  it  will  redress  much  of  our  trouble. 
The  slave  States  can  lose  nothing,  for  few  of  their  statesmen  expect  any 
further  extension  of  slavery.  Disunion,  certainly,  is  not  extension.  Dis 
union  rather  is  abolition,  and  abolition  civil  and  perhaps  servile  war, 
which  God  forbid  !  It  is  precisely  because  they  anticipate  abolition  that 
many  earnest  abolitionists  desire  disunion.  Why,  then,  may  not  all — 
slave  States  and  free  States  alike — frankly  accept  the  actual  condition  of 
non-extension;  determined,  in  the  Union,  by  the  irreversible  judgment  of 
the  people  ;  determined,  out  of  the  Union,  by  inevitable  destiny  ?  Such 
acceptance  would  be  a  long  step  toward  peace. 

"Besides  the  question  of  extension  there  seems  to  me  to  be  but  one 
other  which  need  occasion  any  anxiety.  I  refer  of  course  to  the  extradi 
tion  of  escaping  slaves.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Constitution  stipulates 
for  such  extradition ;  but  I  cannot  help  seeing  that  natural  sentiment  and 
conscientious  conviction  make  the  execution  of  this  stipulation  everywhere 
difficult  and  in  the  free  States  wellnigh  impracticable ;  and  I  would  not 
delude  anybody  with  the  notion  of  what  some  people  call  *  a  fair  law.' 
For  all  such  propositions  mean  evasion,  and  would  evade  nothing.  It  is 
high  time  to  have  done  with  evasions.  Let  us  recognize  facts  as  they  are, 
frankly  and  boldly,  and  not  try  to  creep  away  from  them.  In  this  spirit  I 
would  recognize  the  fact  of  constitutional  obligation  and  the  fact  that  it 
cannot  be  fulfilled  with  any  thing  like  completeness,  and  then  I  would  see 
what  could  be  done  instead  of  literal  fulfillment.  It  seems  to  me  that 
compensation  for  the  fugitive  would  be  better  than  any  thing  else  that  is 
practicable.  It  would  be  better  for  the  slave  States,  because  the  return  of 


VISIT  TO   MR.   LIXCOLN  AT  SPRINGFIELD.  201 

a  fugitive  is  not  in  itself  a  desirable  tiling  either  for  the  individual  from 
whom  or  for  the  State  from  which  he  flees ;  it  wrould  be  better  for  the  free 
States,  because  it  would  involve  nothing  repugnant  to  the  sentiments  and 
convictions  of  the  people ;  it  would  be  better — infinitely  bettei  for  all — 
than  disunion. 

"With  these  questions  thus  adjusted,  peace  would  return,  and  harmony 
and  prosperity.  Is  there  any  better  way  ?  I  see  none.  It  is  useless  to  at 
tempt  impossibilities.  It  is  useless  to  try  to  reverse  public  opinion.  It  is 
useless  to  contend  with  the  general  course  and  progress  of  civilization.  It 
is  useful  only  to  endeavor  so  to  modify  and  direct  that  course  as  to  make 
the  current,  capable  of  becoming  a  destructive  flood,  a  beneficent  and  fer 
tilizing  stream. 

"  You  have  my  thoughts  honestly  though  hastily  expressed. 
"  Yours  most  cordially, 

"  S.  P.  CHASE." 

Not  long  after  the  election,  amid  the  struggles  of  contending 
factions  in  the  Republican  party,  and  of  the  distress  and  agita 
tion  prevailing  everywhere  both  North  and  South,  Mr.  Lincoln 
invited  Mr.  Chase  to  a  conference  at  Springfield.  Mr.  Chase 
went  without  delay.  He  arrived  in  that  city  on  the  evening  of 
the  3d  of  January,  1861 ;  and  found  there  politicians  of  all 
grades  and  from  all  quarters  urging  the  claims,  or  opposing  the 
claims,  of  contending  aspirants  for  office ;  Cameron,  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  being,  for  the  time,  the  particular  subject  of  contention 
among  partisans  and  of  embarrassment  to  Mr.  Lincoln. 

Immediately  upon  being  informed  of  his  arrival,  Mr.  Lin 
coln — without  consulting  what  would  perhaps  have  been  a  strict 
formality — called  upon  Mr.  Chase  at  his  hotel.  The  meeting 
between  the  two  gentlemen  was  friendly  and  cordial ;  Mr.  Lin 
coln  recalling,  at  the  very  beginning  of  their  interview,  the  fact 
that  in  1858  Mr.  Chase,  almost  alone  of  the  leaders  of  the  Repub 
lican  party  outside  of  Illinois,  had  given  him  active  help  by  com 
ing  into  the  State  and  aiding  him  in  his  celebrated  canvass 
against  Mr.  Douglas.  "  I  have  done  with  you,"  said  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  "  what  I  would  not  perhaps  have  ventured  to  do  with  any 
other  man  in  the  country — sent  for  you  to  ask  you  whether  you 
will  accept  the  appointment  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  with 
out,  however,  being  exactly  prepared  to  offer  it  to  you."  To 
this  Mr.  Chase  replied  that  such  a  question  placed  him  in  an  un 
pleasant  position ;  that  he  wanted  no  appointment,  and  certainly 


202  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE., 

could  not  easily  reconcile  himself  to  the  acceptance  of  a  subor 
dinate  one.  Mr.  Lincoln  said  that  he  had  felt  bound  to  offer 
the  position  of  Secretary  oL  State  *  to  Mr.  Seward  as  the  gener 
ally-recognized  leader  of  the  Republican  party,  intending,  if 
Mr.  Seward  had  declined,  to  offer  it  without  qualification  to 
Mr.  Chase.  He  added  that  he  had  not  wished  Mr.  Seward  to 
decline ;  but  had  sincerely  desired  him  to  accept,  and  was  glad 
he  had  accepted.  Mr.  Chase  concurred  with  Mr.  Lincoln  con 
cerning  the  offer  to  Mr.  Seward,  and  said  that,  though  he  was 
unprepared  to  declare  his  willingness  to  accept  the  Treasury  De 
partment  if  tendered  him,  the  selection  of  Mr.  Seward  to  the 
Department  of  State  would  remove  his  objections  to  a  subor 
dinate  place  if  he  should  conclude  to  accept  at  all.  From  this 
subject,  the  conversation  took  a  wide  range,  including  men  and 
policies.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  firm  against  any  deviation  from  the 
declarations  of  the  Chicago  Convention,  but  said  that  if  the 
country  could  guard  effectually  against  any  further  acquisition 
of  territory,  the  restoration  and  extension  of  the  Missouri  line 

1  Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Seward. 

"COLUMBUS,  January  11,  1861. 

"  Mr  DEAR  SIR  :  You  are  to  be  Secretary  of  State.  The  post  is  yours  by  right, 
and  you  will  have  the  post.  My  best  wishes  go  with  you.  Permit  me  a  few  words 
about  matters  in  which  we  have  a  deep  common  interest. 

"  The  telegraph  reports  that  you  are  to  speak  on  Saturday.  Let  me  urge  you  to 
give  countenance  to  no  scheme  of  compromise.  Mr.  Lincoln  will  be  inaugurated  in 
a  few  days.  Then  the  Republicans  will  be  charged  with  the  responsibility  of  ad 
ministration.  Then,  too,  they  will  control  one  branch  of  the  Government. 

"  To  me  it  seems  all-important  that  no  compromise  be  now  made,  and  no  conces 
sion  involving  any  surrender  of  principles ;  but  that  the  people  of  the  slave  States, 
and  of  all  the  States,  be  plainly  told  that  the  Republicans  have  no  proposition  to 
make  at  present ;  that  when  they  have  the  power  they  will  be  ready  to  offer  an 
adjustment,  fair  and  beneficial  to  all  sections  of  the  country — that  in  the  mean  time 
all  they  ask  of  those  who  now  have  the  power  is,  to  uphold  the  Constitution,  main 
tain  the  Union,  and  enforce  the  laws.  I  fully  believe  that  such  an  adjustment  can 
be  offered,  and  that,  when  offered  by  an  Administration  having  the  power  and  the 
will  to  make  itself  respected,  and  the  laws  something  more  than  meaningless  words 
on  the  statute-books,  it  will  be  accepted,  and  that  then  we  shall  have  stable  peace 
and  the  new  era. 

"  Pardon  my  suggestions.  They  are  prompted  only  by  zeal  for  the  cause  and 
good-will  to  its  defenders. 

"  Cordially  yours, 

"S.  P.  CHASE. 

"  Hon.  WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD." 


THE  TREASURY— VIRGINIA  PEACE  RESOLUTIONS.  203 

might  be  agreed  to  for  the  sake  of  peace.  Mr.  Chase  dissented, 
saying  that  "  the  American  people  knew  no  such  god  as  Ter 
minus." 

During  the  two  days  Mr.  Chase  remained  in  Springfield, 
several  interviews  took  place  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  himself, 
in  one  of  which  Mr.  Lincoln  said  that  he  had  been  informed  by 
Mr.  Cameron  that  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Chase  to  the  Treas 
ury  would  be  entirely  acceptable  to  Pennsylvania ;  but  he  said, 
at  the  same  time,  that  the  anti-Cameron  men  were  urging  the 
appointment  to  the  Treasury  Department  of  William  S.  Dayton, 
of  New  Jersey. 

Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Chase  separated  with  a  no  more  dis 
tinct  understanding  than  this — that  Mr.  Chase  was  at  liberty  to 
consider  the  offer  under  the  advice  of  friends ;  with  a  disposition 
to  accept  if  they  should  think  the  public  interest  required  it, 
though  on  his  own  part  feeling  and  believing  at  the  same  time 
that  he  could  be  more  useful  in  the  Senate. 

On  the  19th  of  January — a  few  days  subsequent  to  Mr. 
Chase's  return  from  Springfield — the  Legislature  of  Virginia 
passed  a  series  of  resolutions,  in  which  that  body  declared,  "  that 
unless  the  unhappy  controversy  which  now  divides  the  States  of 
the  Confederacy  shall  be  satisfactorily  adjusted,  a  permanent 
dissolution  of  the  Union  is  inevitable  ; "  and  representing  "  the 
wishes  of  the  people  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Virginia,"  alleged 
their  desire  to  employ  every  reasonable  means  to  avert  so  fear 
ful  a  calamity.  Then  declaring  its  determination  "  to  make  a 
final  effort  to  restore  the  Union  and  the  Constitution  in  the 
spirit  in  which  they  were  established  by  the  fathers  of  the 
republic,"  the  Legislature  resolved,  "  that  on  behalf  of  the  Com 
monwealth  of  Virginia,  an  invitation  is  hereby  extended  to  all 
such  States,  whether  slaveholding  or  non-slaveholding,  as  are 
willing  to  unite  with  Virginia  in  an  earnest  effort  to  adjust  the 
present  unhappy  controversies,  in  the  spirit  in  which  the  Con 
stitution  was  originally  formed,  and  consistently  with  its  prin 
ciples,  so  as  to  afford  to  the  people  of  the  slaveholding  States 
adequate  guarantees  for  the  security  of  their  rights,  to  appoint 
commissioners  to  meet  on  the  4th  of  February  next,  in  the  city 
of  "Washington,  similar  commissioners  appointed  by  Virginia, 
to  consider  and  if  practicable  agree  upon  some  suitable  adjust- 


204  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

ment."  Five  persons  were  appointed  to  attend  on  the  part  of 
Virginia — John  Tyler,  William  C.  Kives,  John  W.  Brocken- 
brough,  George  "W.  Summers,  and  James  A.  Seddon. 

Governor  Dennison,  of  Ohio,  responded  to  the  invitation 
of  Virginia  by  appointing  as  delegates  to  this  "  Peace  Con 
vention"  Mr.  Chase,  Thomas  Ewing,  William  S.  Groesbeck, 
John  0.  Wright,  who,  dying  at  an  early  period  of  its  delibera 
tions,  was  succeeded  by  Christopher  P.  Wolcott ;  Eeuben  Hitch 
cock,  and  Franklin  T.  Backus.  Seven  slave  States  and  fourteen 
of  the  free  States  sent  representatives. 

Mr.  Chase  did  not  much  believe  in  this  conference  as  a 
means  of  reconciliation,  but  rather  that  it  was  intended  to  secure 
new  concessions  to  slavery.  He  was  quite  willing  there,  as  else 
where,  to  give  to  the  slave  States  the  strongest  assurances  that 
no  aggressions  upon  their  rights  or  interests  were  meditated, 
but  he  was  not  willing  to  disguise  from  them  that  a  further 
extension  of  slavery  was,  so  far  as  he  could  exercise  influence, 
impossible. 

Upon  the  meeting  of  the  Conference,  on  the  4th  of  February, 
1861,  it  was  soon  found  that  the  slave-State  delegates  would 
expect  inadmissible  concessions.  The  commissioners  whose 
views  agreed  with  those  of  Mr.  Chase  finally  determined  to  pro 
pose  to  refer  all  matters  of  difference  to  a  National  Convention 
of  all  the  States,  and  meantime  to  arrest  the  progress  of  dis 
union,  by  giving  definite  assurances  that  no  invasion  of  the  rights 
of  States  over  the  subject  of  slavery,  or  any  other  subject,  was 
intended  or  would  be  attempted.  In  the  very  earnest  speech  he 
made  to  the  convention  (February  26th)  in  support  of  this  prop 
osition,  he  suggested — while  admitting  that  his  suggestion  was 
not  exactly  to  the  point  of  the  discussion — as  a  mode  of  av>)id- 
ing  the  disorders  which  grew  out  of  the  fugitive  slave  law,  in 
stead  of  the  rendition  of  fugitives,  to  make  compensation  for 
them  out  of  the  national  Treasury.  He  warned  the  South,  with 
great  solemnity,  of  the  consequences  of  secession.  "  If  forced 
to  the  last  extremity,"  he  said,  "  the  people  of  the  free  States 
will  meet  the  issue  as  best  they  may ;  but  be  assured  they  will 
meet  it  with  no  discordant  councils.  Mr.  Lincoln  will  be  in 
augurated  on  the  4th  of  March.  He  will  take  an  oath  to  pro 
tect  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States— of  all 


THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE.  205 

the  United  States.  That  oath  will  bind  him  to  take  care  that 
the  laws  be  faithfully  executed  throughout  the  United  States. 
Will  secession  absolve  him  from  that  oath  ?  Will  it  diminish, 
by  one  jot  or  tittle,  its  awful  obligation  ?  Will  attempted  revo 
lution  do  more  than  secession  ?  And  if  not — and  the  oath  and 
obligation  remain — and  the  President  does  his  duty  and  under 
takes  to  enforce  the  laws,  and  secession  or  revolution  resists, 
what  then  ?  War  !  Civil  war ! — Let  us  not  rush  headlong  into 
that  unfathomable  gulf.  Let  us  not  tempt  this  unutterable  woe. 
We  offer  you  a  plain  and  honorable  mode  of  adjusting  all  diffi 
culties.  It  is  a  mode  which,  we  believe,  will  receive  the  sanc 
tion  of  the  people.  We  pledge  ourselves  here  that  we  will  do 
all  in  our  power  to  obtain  their  sanction  for  it.  Is  it  too  much 
to  ask  you,  gentlemen  of  the  South,  to  meet  us  on  this  honor 
able  and  practicable  ground  ?  Will  you  not  at  least  concede  this 
to  the  country  ? " 

Instead  of  adopting  the  proposal  for  a  National  Convention, 
a  proposed  amendment  to  the  Constitution  was  forced  through 
the  Conference  in  violation  of  its  rules,  and  submitted  to  Con 
gress.  This  proposed  amendment  (to  be  the  thirteenth)  *  was 

1  The  first  section  of  this  amendment  was  as  follows :  "  In  all  the  present  terri 
tory  of  the  United  States  north  of  the  parallel  of  thirty-six  degrees  and  thirty  minutes 
of  north  latitude,  involuntary  servitude  except  in  punishment  of  crime,  is  prohibited. 
In  all  the  present  territory  south  of  that  line  the  status  of  persons  held  to  involun 
tary  service  or  labor  as  it  now  exists  shall  not  be  changed ;  nor  shall  any  law  be 
passed  by  Congress  or  the  territorial  Legislature  to  hinder  or  prevent  the  taking  of 
such  persons  from  any  of  the  States  of  this  Union  to  said  territory,  nor  to  impair  the 
rights  arising  from  said  relation ;  but  the  same  shall  be  subject  to  judicial  cognizance 
in  the  Federal  courts  according  to  the  course  of  the  common  law.  When  any  Terri 
tory  north  or  south  of  said  line,  within  such  boundary  as  Congress  may  prescribe, 
shall  contain  a  population  equal  to  that  required  for  a  member  of  Congress,  it  shall, 
if  its  form  of  government  be  republican,  be  admitted  into  the  Union  on  an  equal 
footing  with  the  original  States,  with  or  without  involuntary  servitude  as  the  consti 
tution  of  such  State  may  provide."  The  second,  third  and  seventh  sections  ran 
thus :  The  second — "  No  territory  shall  be  acquired  by  the  United  States  except  by 
discovery,  and  for  naval  and  commercial  stations,  depots,  and  transit  routes,  witho'ut 
the  concurrence  of  a  majority  of  all  the  Senators  from  States  which  allow  involun 
tary  servitude  and  a  majority  of  all  the  Senators  from  States  which  prohibit  that 
relation  ;  nor  shall  territory  be  acquired  by  treaty  unless  by  the  votes  of  a  majority 
of  the  Senators  from  each  class  of  States  hereinbefore  mentioned,  be  cast  as  a  part 
of  the  two-thirds  majority  necessary  to  the  ratification  of  such  treaty."  The  third — 
"  Neither  the  Constitution  nor  any  amendment  thereof  shall  be  construed  to  give 
Congress  power  to  regulate,  abolish  or  control  within  any  State,  the  relation  estab- 


206  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

comprised  in  seven  sections,  and  made  large  concessions  to  sla 
very.  Mr.  Chase  and  Mr.  Wolcott,  of  the  Ohio  representatives, 
alone  voted  against  it.  "When  it  was  submitted  to  Congress, 
however,  it  met  but  little  favor ;  and  the  labors  of  the  conven 
tion  ended  in  naught. 

Congress,  however,  engaged  itself  busily  in  various  schemes 
of  intended  pacification ;  every  one  of  them  involving  more  or 
less  of  abandonment  of  the  ground  taken  by  the  Republican 
party  in  relation  to  slavery.  Mr.  Chase  steadily  opposed  them 
all,  so  far  as  he  was  consulted  and  his  influence  could  be  made 
effective.  Threats  were  openly  made  that  unless  such  abandon 
ment  was  conceded,  Mr.  Lincoln's  inauguration  would  not  be 
permitted.  To  these  menaces  Mr.  Chase  replied  in  words  which 
were  repeated  through  the  North — "  Inauguration  first,  adjust- 

lished  or  recognized  by  the  laws  thereof  touching  persons  held  to  labor  or  involun 
tary  service  therein,  nor  to  interfere  with  or  abolish  involuntary  service  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia  without  the  consent  of  Maryland  and  without  the  consent  of  the 
owners,  or  making  the  owners  who  do  not  consent  just  compensation ;  nor  the  power 
to  interfere  with  or  prohibit  representatives  and  others  from  bringing  with  them  to 
the  District  of  Columbia,  retaining  and  taking  away  persons  so  held  to  service  or 
labor ;  nor  the  power  to  interfere  with  or  abolish  involuntary  service  in  places  under 
the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States  within  those  States  and  Territories 
Avhere  the  same  is  established  or  recognized ;  nor  the  power  to  prohibit  the  removal 
or  transportation  of  persons  held  to  labor  or  involuntary  service  in  any  State  or  Ter 
ritory  of  the  United  States  to  any  other  State  or  Territory  thereof  where  it  is  estab 
lished  or  recognized  by  law  or  usage ;  and  the  right  during  transportation  by  sea  or 
river,  of  touching  at  ports,  shores  and  landings,  and  of  landing  in  case  of  distress, 
shall  exist ;  but  not  the  right  of  transit  in  or  through  any  State  or  Territory,  or  of 
sale  or  traffic  against  the  laws  thereof.  NOT  shall  Congress  have  power  to  authorize 
any  higher  rate  of  taxation  on  persons  held  to  labor  or  service  than  on  land.  The 
bringing  into  the  District  of  Columbia  of  persons  held  to  labor  or  service  for  sale,  or 
placing  them  in  depots  to  be  afterward  transferred  to  other  places  for  sale  as  mer 
chandise,  is  prohibited."  The  seventh — "  Congresss  shall  provide  by  law  that  the 
United  States  shall  pay  to  the  owner  the  full  value  of  his  fugitive  from  labor,  in  all 
cases  where  the  marshal  or  other  officer  whose  duty  it  was  to  arrest  such  fugitive 
was  prevented  from  so  doing  by  violence  or  intimidation  from  mobs  or  riotous  as 
semblages,  or  when,  after  arrest,  such  fugitive  was  rescued  by  like  violence  or  in 
timidation,  and  the  owner  thereby  deprived  of  the  same ;  and  the  acceptance  of  such 
payment  shall  preclude  the  owner  from  further  claim  to  such  fugitive.  Congress 
shall  provide  by  law  for  securing  to  the  citizens  of  such  State  the  privileges  and  im 
munities  of  citizens  in  the  several  States."  These  several  resolutions  formed  the 
basis  of  the  restoration  of  the  Union  and  the  Constitution  in  the  spirit  of  the  fathers 
of  the  republic,  as  that  spirit  was  interpreted  by  a  majority  of  the  members  of  the 
"  Peace  Conference  !  " 


BECOMES  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY.  207 

ment  afterward  ;  "  "  words,"  observes  Mr.  Trowbridge,  "  which 
were  not  without  effect  upon  the  public  mind." 

The  inauguration,  however,  took  place  peacefully  and  in  the 
presence  of  vast  multitudes  of  people — many  thousands  from 
the  North,  and  very  few  from  the  South,  going  to  the  capital 
to  witness  it.  Mr.  Chase  took  his  seat  in  the  Senate  on  the 
same  day,  March  4th. 

Two  days  afterward,  Mr.  Lincoln,  without  consulting  Mr. 
Chase,  nominated  him  to  be  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Mr. 
Chase  happened  to  be  absent  from  the  Senate  when  the  nomina 
tion  was  received ;  on  his  return,  a  few  minutes  later,  he  was 
informed  of  what  had  taken  place,  and  that  the  nomination  had 
been  at  once  unanimously  confirmed.  "  I  went  immediately  to 
the  President,"  writes  Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Trowbridge,  "  and 
expressed  my  disinclination  to  accept.  After  some  conversation, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  referred  to  the  embarrassment  my 
declination  would  occasion  him,  I  said  I  wrould  give  the  matter 
further  consideration  and  advise  him  next  day  of  my  decision. 
Some  rumor  of  my  hesitation  got  abroad,  and  I  was  immedi 
ately  pressed  by  the  most  urgent  remonstrances  not  to  decline. 
I  finally  yielded  to  this,  and  surrendered  a  position  every  way 
more  desirable  to  me,  to  take  charge  of  the  finances  of  the  coun 
try  under  circumstances  most  unpropitious  and  forbidding." 

This  decision  to  accept  was  made  the  evening  of  the  nomi 
nation,  and  before  sleeping  Mr.  Chase  forwarded  the  resignation 
of  his  seat  in  the  Senate  to  the  Governor  of  Ohio,  in  the  sub 
joined  letter : 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  6, 1861. 

"  SIK  :  Will  you  have  the  goodness  to  make  known  to  the  General  As 
sembly  my  resignation  of  the  office  of  Senator  of  the  United  States  from 
the  State  of  Ohio,  of  which  I  shall  immediately  notify  the  President  of  the 
Senate  ? 

"  It  would  be  far  more  consonant  with  my  wishes  to  remain  at  the 
post  to  which  the  people  of  Ohio,  through  the  General  Assembly,  saw  fit 
to  call  me.  Deeply  indebted  to  their  generosity  for  repeated  marks  of  con 
fidence,  and  for  the  profoundly  indulgent  consideration  with  which  my 
endeavors  to  promote  their  interests  have  ever  been  regarded  by  them,  it 
is  impossible  for  me  to  prefer  any  other  service  to  theirs. 

"  But  the  President  has  thought  fit  to  call  me  to  another  sphere  of 
duty,  more  laborious,  more  arduous,  and  fuller  far  of  perplexing  responsi 
bilities.  I  sought  to  avoid  it,  and  would  now  gladly  decline  it,  if  I  might. 


208  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

I  find  it  impossible  to  do  so,  however,  without  seeming  to  shrink  from 
cares  and  labors  for  the  common  good,  which  cannot  be  honorably 
shunned.  I  shall  accept,  therefore,  these  new  duties,  greatly  distrusting 
my  own  abilities,  but  humbly  invoking  divine  aid  and  guidance. 

"  I  shall  hope  that  my  decision  will  meet  the  approval  of  the  General 
Assembly  and  the  people  of  Ohio ;  and  shall  greatly  rejoice  if,  by  the  con 
stant  application  of  my  best  powers  in  the  service  of  the  whole  country,  I 
shall  succeed  in  contributing  any  thing  to  that  common  welfare  in  which 
Ohio  has  an  interest  hardly  inferior  to  that  of  any  other  of  the  States  of 
the  Union. 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

"  With  very  great  respect, 

"  Yours  truly, 

"  8.  P.  CHASE." 
u  To  his  Excellency  WILLIAM  DENISON,  Governor  of  Ohio." 


CHAPTEE    XXIY. 

t 

ENTERS  UPON  HIS  DUTIES  AS  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY DE 
PRESSED  STATE  OF  THE  FINANCES  AT  THAT  TIME — HIS  EARLY 
FINANCIAL  MEASURES — BEGINNING  OF  THE  REBELLION — EXTRA 
SESSION  OF  CONGRESS,  JULY,  1861. 

TH  K  critical  condition  of  public  affairs  during  the  closing 
months  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  Administration,  and  the  general 
apprehension  that  they  must  early  culminate  in  civil  war,  had 
materially  damaged  the  public  credit  some  time  before  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  inauguration.  The  comparatively  small  necessities  of  the 
Government  during  the  last  session  of  the  Thirty-sixth  Congress 
were  met  with  serious  difficulty,  and  at  rates  and  under  circum 
stances  which  showed  how  extensive  the  loss  of  confidence  was. 
On  the  17th  of  December,  1860,  Congress  authorized  an 
issue  of  ten  millions  of  one-year  Treasury  notes,  to  be  disposed 
of  at  the  best  attainable  rates.1  Five  millions  of  these  were  ad 
vertised  to  be  awarded  on  the  28th  of  the  same  month.  But  a 
small  aggregate  sum  was  offered,  and  the  rates  varied  from 
twelve  to  thirty-six  per  cent.  The  offers  at  twelve  were  ac 
cepted  ;  they  made  a  total,  however,  of  only  half  a  million  dol 
lars.  An  association  of  bankers — on  condition  that  the  proceeds 
be  applied  to  the  payment  of  interest  on  the  then  existing  public 
debt — subsequently  took  one  and  a  half  million  at  twelve,  and 
afterward  the  remainder  of  the  five  millions  advertised  at  the 
same  figure.  In  January,  1861,  Secretary  Dix  disposed  of  the 

1  As  early  as  June,  1860 — four  months  before  Mr.  Lincoln's  election — Secretary 
Cobb  was  borrowing  money  at  twelve  per  cent,  per  annum. 

14 


210 


LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 


other  five  of  the  ten  millions  authorized,  at  an  average  of  about 
eleven  per  cent. 

On  the  8th  of  February  Congress  authorized  a  loan  of  twenty- 
five  millions  of  United  States  stocks,  payable  in  not  less  than 
ten  nor  more  than  twenty  years,  to  bear  six  per  cent,  interest. 
Secretary  Dix  advertised  eight  millions  of  these  to  be  awarded 
on  the  22d  of  the  same  month.  Pending  the  advertisement,  on 
the  llth  of  February,  the  Secretary  addressed  a  letter  to  the 
chairman  of  the  Committee  of  "Ways  and  Means,  apprising  the 
committee  that  the  liabilities  of  the  Government  due  and  to  fall 
due  before  the  4th  of  March  were  about  ten  millions  of  dol 
lars  ;  that  the  revenues  of  the  department  would  be  entirely  in 
sufficient  to  meet  them,  and  that  not  less  than  eight  millions 
would  have  to  be  borrowed.  He  said  that  in  the  existing  con 
dition  of  the  country  it  would  be  impossible  to  obtain  this  sum 
except  at  rates  seriously  damaging  to  the  public  credit,  without 
some  pledge  in  addition  to  that  of  the  General  Government. 
Some  of  the  States  had  offered  the  pledge  of  their  faith  to  the 
extent  of  the  public  moneys  deposited  with  them  under  the  act 
of  the  23d  June,  1836 ; l  and  the  Secretary  invited  attention  to 
these  proposals  with  a  manifest  hope  that  Congress  would  act 
favorably  upon  them ;  but  no  action  was  had.  The  bids  were 
opened  on  the  22d  of  February,  as  advertised ;  the  aggregate  of 
offers  was  about  fourteen  and  a  half  millions,  and  ranged  from 
75  to  96.10.  Eight  millions  were  accepte'd  at  rates  not  less 
than  90. 

1  The  13th  section  of  the  act  of  23d  June,  1836  (5  Stat.  at  Large,  53),  author 
ized  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  deposit  with  such  States  as  should  legalize 
their  acceptance,  in  proportion  to  their  congressional  representation,  such  excess  of 
the  public  moneys  over  five  millions  of  dollars  as  should  be  in  the  United  States 
Treasury  on  the  1st  of  January,  1837 ;  to  be  returned  to  the  Government  in  the 
manner  prescribed  by  the  act.  The  following  table  shows  the  distribution  made,  no 
portion  of  which  has  been  returned  to  the  national  Treasury : 


Maine $955,88325 

New  Hampshire 660,036  79 

Massachusetts 1,838,173  58 

Vermont 669,08679 

Connecticut 764,670  60 

Rhode  Island 882,335  80 

New  York 4,014,520  71 

New  Jersey 764.670  60 

Pennsylvania 2,867,514  78 

Delaware 286,751  49 

Maryland 955,838  25 

Virginia 2,198.427  99 

North  Carolina 1,4-33,757  39 


South  Carolina $1,051,422  09 

Georgia 1.051.422  09 

Alabama 669,086  79 

Louisiana 477,919  14 

Mississippi 882.335  30 

Tennessee 1,433.757  89 

Kentucky 1,433.757  39 

Ohio 2,007,26084 

Missouri 882.83580 

Indiana 860.254  44 

Illinois 477.919  14 

Michisfin 286.751  49 

Arkansas 286,751  49 


THE  POLITICAL  SITUATION.  211 

This  brief  sketch  will  illustrate  the  depressed  state  of  the 
public  finances  during  the  three  months  ending  about  the  4th 
of  March,  1861.  Congress  during  the  same  period  had  been 
stormy  and  factious.  The  Southern  Senators  and  Representa 
tives  effectually  controlled  the  expressions  and  action  of  the  ven 
erable  and  timid  President.  Seven  of  the  slaveholding  States, 
professing  a  constitutional  right  to  do  so,  and  surrounding  their 
acts  with  the  most  solemn  official  forms,  had  publicly  declared 
their  secession  from  the  Federal  Union,  and  were  in  the  attitude 
of  practical  war  upon  the  national  authority.  They  had  united 
in  the  organization  of  a  confederated  government,  and  had  as- ' 
sumed  and  were  exercising  the  functions  of  a  separate  and  inde 
pendent  nation.  To  render  the  situation  still  more  painfully 
embarrassing,  a  powerful  body  of  the  Northern  people  protested 
earnestly,  and  even  passionately,  against  the  existence  of  any 
constitutional  right  in  the  General  Government  to  coerce  by  arms 
States  which  had  formally  withdrawn  from  the  Union.  And 
there  were  not  wanting  members  of  the  great  party  which  had 
elected  Mr.  Lincoln  who  declared  peaceable  secession  preferable 
to  the  calamities  and  contingencies  of  civil  war.  But  war  was 
inevitable,  as  the  more  sagacious  statesmen  clearly  foresaw. 

Mr.  Chase,  unawed  by  the  portentous  aspect  of  the  political 
elements,  immediately  entered  upon  the  organization  of  his 
financial  plans.  Plutarch  writes  of  Pericles  that  he  was  seen  in 
public  only  in  going  to  and  coming  from  the  senate-house.  It 
may  truly  be  said  of  Mr.  Chase  that  he  was  seen  only  in  going 
to  and  coming  from  the  place  of  his  official  labors.  His  abilities 
.and  energy  soon  manifested  themselves  to  the  people.  He  rees 
tablished  the  public  credit  upon  solid  foundations.  He  created 
a  currency  which  answered  all  the  vast  requirements  of  the  war, 
and  was,  beyond  all  precedent  in  the  history  of  the  country, 
popular  among  the  people,  and  this  too  before  the  suspension  of 
cash  payments.  It  is  important  to  be  remembered  that  that  cur 
rency  was  not  at  first  a  legal  tender.  He  projected  a  system  of 
national  banks,  designed  ultimately  to  supersede  all  similar  insti 
tutions  existing  under  State  laws.  The  circulating  notes  of  these 
banks,  secured  both  by  private  capital  and  by  ample  deposits  of 
Government  bonds  with  the  Treasurer  of  the  United  States, 
were  intended  to  provide,  in  an  emphatic  sense,  a  sound  and 


212  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

uniform  currency,  the  benefits  of  which — embracing  the  whole 
country  and  extending  into  the  far  future — were  to  prevent  the 
evils  inseparable  from  disordered  issues.  Under  the  general 
operation  of  his  measures,  the  loans  of  the  Government  were  ab 
sorbed  with  great  rapidity,  not  only  by  domestic  purchasers  but 
by  foreign  investors.  And  more  important  than  any  other  con 
sideration,  the  Administration  was  enabled  to  meet  the  prodi 
gious  expenditures  entailed  by  the  war  promptly,  surely,  regu 
larly. 

Mr.  Chase  did  not  deceive  himself  nor  did  he  deceive  the 
people  as  to  the  true  basis  of  the  extensive  financial  operations 
of  the  Government.  He  felt  the  force  and  necessity  of  a  severe 
and  comprehensive  system  of  Federal  taxation,  and  urged  upon 
the  early  and  earnest  attention  of  Congress  the  adoption  of  an 
adequate  scheme  of  revenue  from  this  source  as  indispensable  to 
a  sound  administration  of  the  Treasury. 

On  assuming  office  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  March  7, 
1861,  Mr.  Chase  found  that  he  had  power  to  negotiate  loans 
under  the  acts  of  22d  June,  1860,  and  8th  February  and  2d 
March,  1861.  Under  the  first,  which  authorized  a  loan  of  twenty- 
one  millions  of  United  States  stocks  at  six  per  cent.,  Secretary 
Cobb  had  negotiated  $7,022,000,  leaving  $13,978,000  for  future 
negotiation ;  under  the  second,  authorizing  twenty-five  millions 
six  per  cent,  stock,  Secretary  Dix  had  disposed  of  $8,006,000, 
leaving  $16,994,000 ;  and  under  the  third,  authorizing  a  loan  of 
ten  millions  of  six  per  cent,  stock  (it  was  also  a  tariff  act),  no 
negotiation  had  been  made  or  attempted.  This  last  act  gave 
power  to  the  Secretary  to  exchange  Treasury  notes  at  par  for  coin 
to  the  amount  undisposed  of  under  the  act  of  February  8th. 
These  unsold  loans  made  a  total  of  $40,964,000. 

On  the  22d  of  March  proposals  were  advertised  for  eight 
millions  of  the  loan  of  the  8th  of  February,  to  be  awarded  on 
the  2d  of  April  following.  Mr.  Chase,  entirely  assured  that  this 
stock,  payable  in  coin  and  bearing  a  coin  interest  of  six  per 
centum,  was  intrinsically  worth  par,  resolved  that  there  should 
be  as  little  sacrifice  in  selling  them  as  great  and  pressing  public 
necessities  would  permit.  The  offers  were  more  than  twenty- 
seven  millions ;  the  lowest  bid  being  for  $5,000  at  85,  and  the 
highest  was  for  $1,000  at  par.  Eight  millions  were  accepted  at 


HIS  EARLY  FINANCIAL  OPERATIONS.  213 

94  and  upward— realizing  to  the  Treasury  §7,814,809.80.  All 
offers  under  94  were  declined ;  the  firmness  of  the  Secretary  in 
declining  them,  while  it  disappointed  many,  served  to  inspire  gen 
eral  confidence ;  and  if  his  action  did  not  raise,  it  certainly  pre 
served  from  a  further  decline,  the  already  miserably  depressed 
condition  of  the  public  credit.  It  showed  clearly  enough  that 
the  finances  were  to  be  controlled  more  with  reference  to  the  in 
trinsic  value  of  the  Government  securities  than  to  the,  wishes  or 
interests  of  brokers  and  speculators. 

On  the  4th  of  April  he  awarded  at  par  (and  $360,000  at  a 
slight  premium)  $4,901,000  six  per  cent,  two-years'  Treasury 
notes  receivable  for  public  dues,  or  at  the  holder's  option,  con 
vertible  into  six  per  cent.  United  States  stocks. 

The  means  derived  from  these  negotiations  were,  however, 
insufficient  to  supply  even  immediate  wants.  On  the  21st  of 
May  (after  hostilities  were  begun),  under  a  public  notice  of 
the  llth  of  that  instant,  he  awarded  $7,310,000  of  the  8th 
of  February  loan  at  rates  varying  from  85  to  93  per  cent.,  and 
$1,689,000  in  Treasury  notes  at  par,  realizing  for  the  $8,994,000 
offered  the  sum  of  $7,922,553.45  to  the  Treasury.  He  also 
issued  Treasury  notes  to  offerers  at  par  and  to  public  creditors 
up  to  July  4th  to  the  amount  of  $2,584,550. 

Viewing  these  transactions  in  connection  with  the  turbulent 
condition  of  the  country,  they  cannot  be  regarded  as  any  thing 
less  than  remarkably  successful.  He  was  selling  Government 
stocks  at  an  average  discount  of  about  six  per  cent.,  which  con 
trasts  strongly  with  the  rates  at  which  British  debt  was  con 
tracted  during  the  French  wars. 

The  great  rebellion  was  inaugurated  on  the  12th  of  April  by 
the  attack  on  Sumter.  On  the  13th  the  fort  was  surrendered  ; 
on  the  14th  the  President  issued  his  call  for  seventy-five  thousand 
troops. 

These  events  were  followed  by  a  general  rally  to  arms,  both 
North  and  South,  for  that  tremendous  struggle  the  end  whereof 
human  foresight  could  not  predict.  But  doubt  and  suspense 
were  dispelled :  the  emblems  of  war  appeared  on  every  side ;  the 
enemies  of  coercion  were  hushed  by  the  general  voice  of  the 
people ;  and  herein  at  least  there  was  an  improvement  in  the 
public  condition.  But  the  finances  suffered  severely  from  these 


214  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

occurrences.  They  were  sustained  by  the  courage  and  genius  of 
the  Secretary  and  the  confidence  these  qualities  inspired.  Many 
prominent  and  influential  capitalists  came  forward  in  this  im 
portant  conjuncture  and  by  prompt  assistance  rendered  enduring 
services  to  the  Federal  cause ;  much  of  this  action  being  due  to 
a  personal  confidence  in  the  character  and  abilities  of  the  Secre 
tary. 

Congress,  in  obedience  to  the  summons  of  the  President,  as 
sembled  at  the  capital  on  the  4th  of  July.  Dominated  by  the 
unanimous  attitude  of  the  people,  that  body  was  prompt  and  en 
ergetic  in  its  action.  Men  and  means  were  voted  in  numbers 
and  amount  then  thought  prodigal  and  extravagant.  Other 
views  were  learned,  however,  from  the  lessons  of  experience. 

It  is  from  this  time  forward  that  the  distinctive  policy  of  Mr. 
Chase  is  to  be  considered.  Hitherto  he  had  acted  under  authority 
conferred  by  existing  laws  ;  and  with  such  large  measure  of  suc 
cess  as  to  create  a  general  confidence  in  the  wisdom  and  effective 
ness  of  his  administration. 

Before  entering,  however,  upon  a  further  history 1  of  those  gi 
gantic  financial  operations  which  excited  astonishment  in  the  Old 
"World  and  boastfulness  in  the  New,  it  will  be  proper  to  exhibit 
the  transactions  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1861.  The 
public  debt  at  its  beginning,  July  1,  1860,  was  $64,769,703.08. 
The  balance  in  the  Treasury  at  that  date  was  §3,629,206.71 ;  the 
total  receipts  for  the  year — from  all  sources — were  $86,972,- 
893.81.  Of  this  aggregate  sum  $39,593,819.81  were  on  account 
of  customs  duties  ($35,417,102.11  of  which  were  in  coin  and 
$4,176,717.70  in  Treasury  notes);  $824,687.80  were  derived 
from  sales  of  public  lands  ;  $861,096.54  from  miscellaneous 
sources,  and  $42,064,082.95  were  from  loans.  The  expendi 
tures  for  the  same  period  were  $84,577,258.60  ;  of  which 
$23,188,203.19  were  on  account  of  the  civil  list,  foreign  inter 
course,  and  miscellaneous  objects ;  $3,760,022.72  were  expended 
by  the  Interior  Department;  $22,981,150.44  by  the  War  De 
partment,  over  ten  millions  ($10,108,784.59)  in  the  last  three 
months  of  the  year ;  $12,428,532.09  were  expended  by  the  Navy 

1  I  beg  to  remind  the  reader,  however,  that  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  enter  upon 
all  the  details  of  Mr.  Chase's  administration,  but  rather  to  describe  those  principal 
transactions  which  are  of  permanent  interest  and  importance. 


TREASURY  TRANSACTIONS  FOR  1861.  215' 

Department ;  for  redemption  of  Treasury  notes  and  Texas  cred 
itors  $18,219,207.27,  the  last  week  of  the  year  being  estimated ; 
and  for  payment  of  interest  on  the  public  debt  (which  was  stated 
July  1,  1861,  to  be  $90,867,828.68),  the  last  week  in  the  fiscal 
year  being  also  estimated,  $4,000,142.89 ;  leaving  a  balance  in 
the  Treasury  of  $2,355,635.21.  The  public  debt  of  the  United 
States  on  the  7th  of  March,  1861,  at  which  date  Mr.  Chase  as 
sumed  control  of  the  department,  was  officially  stated  at 
$76,455,299.28 ;  the  increase  in  its  amount  up  to  the  end  of  the 
fiscal  year  (a  period  of  nearly  four  months)  being  $14,412,529.40. 


CHAPTEE   XXY. 

ESTIMATES  FOR  FISCAL  YEAR  1862  —  PROPOSES  DECREASED  DUTIES 
ON  TEAS,  COFFEES,  AND  SUGARS,  A  DIRECT  TAX  OF  TWENTY 
MILLIONS  OF  DOLLARS,  AND  A  NATIONAL  LOAN  OF  ONE  HUN 
DRED  MILLIONS —  THE  BASIS  OF  HIS  ESTIMATES ACTION  OF 


ASSOCIATED  BANKS   OF  NEW  YORK,  PHILADELPHIA,  AND  BOSTON 
BORROWS   ONE   HUNDRED  AND   FIFTY  MILLIONS   OF   DOLLARS. 

ME.  CHASE  estimated  the  whole  sum  required  for  the 
fiscal  year  to  end  June  30,  1862,  at  $318,519,581.87 : 
that  is  to  say,  for  the  war  service,  8185,296,397.19;  for' the 
naval  service,  $30,609,520.29 ;  for  the  civil  list,  foreign  inter 
course,  and  miscellaneous  objects,  $831,406.90  ;  for  the  Interior 
Department,  $431,525.77;  total,  $217,168,850.15 ;  to  pay  Treas 
ury  notes  due  and  to  become  due,  $12,639,861.64: ;  to  meet  for 
mer  appropriations,  $79,710,870.08 ;  and  to  pay  interest  on  pro 
posed  new  debt,  $9,000,000. 

Three  hundred  and  twenty  millions  being  required,  he  pro 
posed  to  raise  eighty  millions  by  taxes  and  two  hundred  and 
forty  millions  by  loans.  It  would  hardly  be  disputed,  he  ob 
served,  that  in  every  sound  system  of  finance  adequate  provision 
by  taxation  for  the  prompt  discharge  of  all  ordinary  demands, 
for  the  punctual  payment  of  interest  on  loans,  and  for  the  crea 
tion  of  a  gradually  increasing  fund  for  the  redemption  of  the 
principal,  is  indispensable.  Public  credit  can  only  be  created  by 
public  faith,  and  public  faith  can  only  be  maintained  by  an  eco 
nomical,  energetic  and  prudent  administration  of  public  affairs, 


HIS  PROPOSED  FINANCIAL   MEASURES.  217 

and  by  the  prompt  and  punctual  fulfillment  of  every  public  obli 
gation. 

Except  on  occasions  of  special  exigency,  no  resort  had  been 
had  to  direct  taxes  or  to  internal  duties  on  excises.  Indirect 
taxation  had  been  the  general  preference  of  the  people,  and  the 
Secretary  proposed  no  departure  from  the  policy  they  had  sanc 
tioned. 

But  the  existing  tariff,  framed  with  reference  to  a  very  dif 
ferent  condition  of  affairs,  was  clearly  inadequate  to  produce  the 
necessary  revenue  for  the  ordinary  expenses.  The  receipts  for 
the  last  fiscal  quarter  had  been  but  five  millions  and  a  half 
($5,527,246.33),  though  he  anticipated  during  the  next  year  a 
very  considerable  improvement.  The  sources  of  revenue  most 
promptly  available  were  to  be  found  in  articles  either  free  of 
duty  or  very  lightly  taxed.  Tea  and  coffee  were  wholly  exempt, 
and  the  duty  on  sugar  was  lig"ht.  By  a  duty  of  two  and  a  half 
cents  on  brown,  three  cents  on  clayed,  four  cents  on  loaf  and 
other  refined  sugars ;  two  and  one  half  cents  per  pound  on  syrup 
of  sugar-cane ;  six  cents  per  pound  on  candy ;  six  cents  a  gallon 
on  molasses,  and  four  cents  on  sour  molasses ;  five  cents  a  pound 
on  coffee ;  fifteen  cents  on  black  and  twenty  cents  a  pound  on 
green  teas — would  produce  an  additional  revenue  of  twenty  mill 
ions  of  dollars ;  and  he  was  sure  the  intelligent  patriotism  of 
the  people  would  cheerfully  sustain  these  necessary  charges. 
Proposed  duties  on  other  articles  then  free,  and  changes  upon 
some  so  heavily  taxed  as  to  amount  to  prohibition,  would  produce 
a  further  revenue  of  seven  millions.  From  the  existing  tariff 
he  expected  an  income  of  thirty  millions ;  from  the  additional 
duties  twenty-seven  millions,  and  to  this  were  to  be  added  three 
millions  to  be  derived  from  sales  of  public  lands  and  miscellane 
ous  sources — total  sixty  millions. 

He  proposed  to  raise  twenty  millions  by  direct  taxes,  or  from 
internal  duties  or  excises,  or  from  both. 

The  value  of  the  real  and  personal  property  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States  was,  according  to  the  census  of  1860,  sixteen 
thousand  millions  of  dollars  ($16,102,924,116).  The  value  of 
the  real  property  was  $11,272,053,881,  and  of  the  personal  prop 
erty  $4,830,880,235.  The  proportion  in  the  States  not  involved 
in  the  rebellion  was  $10,900,758,009,  of  which  $7,630,530,605 


218  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

represented  tlie  value  of  the  real  and  $3,270,227,404  the  value 
of  the  personal  property.  A  rate  of  one-eighth  of  one  per  cent. 
ad  valorem  on  the  whole  would  produce  $20,128,667 ;  a  rate  of 
one-fifth  of  one  per  cent,  would  produce  $21,800,516,  and  three- 
tenths  of  one  per  cent,  on  real  property  alone  would  produce 
$22,891,590  ;  either  sum  being  in  excess  of  the  amount  required. 

He  thought  internal  duties  might  be  more  cheaply  collected 
than  direct  taxes,  and  with  less  interference  with  the  finances  of 
the  States.  They  might  also  be  made  to  bear  mainly  upon  arti 
cles  of  luxury,  and  thus  diminish  the  burden  imposed  by  duties 
on  imports  upon  the  classes  of  people  least  able  to  bear  them. 

But  the  needed  sum  might  also  be  collected,  in  the  judgment 
of  the  Secretary,  by  moderate  charges  on  stills  and  distilled 
liquors,  on  ale  and  beer,  on  tobacco,  on  bank-notes,  on  spring 
carriages,  on  silver-ware  and  jewelry,  and  on  legacies.  If  all  the 
suggested  sources  of  revenue  were  resorted  to,  the  amount  re 
quired  from  loans  would  be  proportionally  diminished,  and  the 
basis  of  the  public  credit  enlarged  and  strengthened. 

Moreover,  he  suggested  retrenchment  in  salaries  of  the  em 
ployes  of  the  Government  and  the  abolition  of  the  franking 
privilege  ;  and  the  confiscation  of  the  property  of  rebels. 

The  only  authority  he  had  for  obtaining  loans  was  found  in 
the  act  of  March  2,  1861,  authorizing  an  issue  of  bonds  bearing 
an  interest  of  six  per  cent.,  or  in  default  of  offers  at  par  the  pay 
ment  of  Treasury  notes,  bearing  the  same  interest,  at  par,  to  the 
amount  of  ten  millions;  and  in  the  act  of  June  22,  1860,  under 
which  Treasury  notes  at  six  per  cent,  might  be  paid  to  creditors 
at  par,  to  the  amount  of  $11,393,450 ;  making  an  aggregate  of 
$21,393,450.  The  magnitude  of  the  public  necessities  required 
further  measures. 

He  submitted  the  expediency  of  a  NATIONAL  LOAN  of  not 
less  than  one  hundred  millions,  to  be  issued  in  the  form  of  Treas 
ury  notes  or  exchequer  bills,  bearing  interest  at  seven  and  three- 
tenths  per  cent.,  to  be  paid  half-yearly,  and  redeemable  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  United  States  after  three  years. 

He  suggested  interest  at  the  rate  of  seven  and  three-tenths 
per  cent.,  because  it  was  equitable  to  both  borrower  and  lender, 
and  peculiarly  convenient  of  calculation ;  but  he  did  not  propose 
to  restrict  loans  in  this  form  to  any  precise  limit  short  of  the  en- 


PROPOSED  FINANCIAL  MEASURES.  219 

tire  sum  that  might  be  required,  in  addition  to  sums  realized 
from  other  sources,  for  all  the  purposes  of  the  year.  lie  pro 
posed  to  open  subscription-books  in  the  office  of  the  United 
States  Treasurer  at  Washington,  and  in  the  offices  of  assistant- 
treasurers  and  depositories  of  public  moneys,  and  in  the  post- 
offices  of  such  cities  and  towns  as  might  be  designated,  and  to 
appoint  private  persons  to  open  books.  Subscriptions  were  to 
be  received  for  fifty  or  any  multiple  of  fifty  dollars.  He  was 
sure  such  a  loan  would  be  responded  to  by  the  people  promptly 
and  liberally.  But  if  it  was  found  inexpedient  (note  the  deli 
cacy  of  this  expression ! )  to  provide  the  whole  amount  needed  in 
the  foregoing  mode,  he  proposed  to  issue  one  hundred  millions 
of  bonds  to  home  and  foreign  lenders  at  rates  not  lower  than 
par,  payable  in  thirty  years,  at  a  rate  of  interest  not  exceeding 
seven  per  cent.,  payable  in  London. 

As  an  auxiliary  measure,  and  for  whatever  sums  might  be 
needed  to  supply  the  full  amount  required  for  the  service  of  the 
fiscal  year,  the  Secretary  recommended  provision  for  the  issue  of 
Treasury  notes  of  ten,  twenty,  and  twenty-five  dollars  each,  pay 
able  one  year  after  date,  to  the  amount  of  fifty  millions.  He 
proposed  that  these  notes  should  bear  interest  at  the  rate  of 
three  and  sixty-five  one-hundredths  per  cent.,  and  be  exchange 
able,  at  the  will  of  the  holder,  for  Treasury  notes  or  exchequer 
bills,  payable  after  three  years,  bearing  seven  and  three-tenths 
per  cent,  interest ;  or  if  found  more  convenient  they  might  be 
made  redeemable  on  demand  in  coin  without  interest.  In  either 
form,  such  notes  might  prove  very  useful  if  prudently  used  in 
anticipation  of  revenue  certain  to  be  received. 

"  But  the  greatest  care  will  be  requisite,"  he  added,  "  to  pre 
vent  the  degradation  of  such  issues  into  an  irredeemable  paper 
currency,  than  which  no  more  certainly  fatal  expedient  for  im 
poverishing  the  masses  and  discrediting  the  government  of  any 
country,  can  well  be  devised." 

The  estimates  of  the  war  expenditures  submitted  in  this  re 
port  of  Mr.  Chase  were  rested  upon  the  belief  that  about  three 
hundred  thousand  troops  of  all  arms — regulars  and  volunteers — 
would  be  brought  into  the  field,  and  that  the  war  would  not  be 
long  continued.  General  Scott,  the  veteran  chief  who  then  com 
manded  the  armies,  believed  three  hundred  thousand  men  ample 


220  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

for  the  purpose  of  suppressing  the  rebellion,  and  that  it  could  be 
ended  in  a  year.  The  number  actually  at  the  command  of  the 
Government  on  the  1st  of  July,  1861,  was  three  hundred  and 
ten  thousand,  but  of  these  eighty  thousand  were  three  months' 
men,  whose  terms  of  service  would  shortly  expire.  Mr.  Came 
ron  (Secretary  of  War)  at  that  particular  period  suffered  embar 
rassments  of  a  remarkable  character ;  too  many  troops  were  offer 
ing.  He  reminded  the  world  of  the  superior  military  ardor  and 
resources  of  the  republic ;  "  instead  of  laboring  under  the  difficulty 
of  monarchical  governments  in  the  want  of  men  to  fill  its  armies 
(which  in  other  countries  has  compelled  a  resort  to  forced  con 
scription),  one  of  its  main  difficulties  is  to  keep  down  the  pro 
portions  of  the  army,  and  prevent  it  from  swelling  beyond  the 
actual  force  required,"  was  a  very  clumsy  and  ungrammatic 
statement  of  a  difficulty  in  the  path  of  Mr.  Cameron  and  the  re 
public  which  grew  less  as  the  war  wore  painfully  on,  and  finally 
disappeared  altogether.  With  his  report  Mr.  Chase  transmitted 
bills 1  embodying  the  recommendations  it  contained. 

To  these  proposed  measures  Congress  responded  promptly  : 
The  loan  act  of  July  17,  1861,  empowered  the  Secretary  to 
borrow  two  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dollars,  or  so  much  of 
that  sum  as  he  should  deem  necessary  for  the  public  service. 
Against  this  bill  but  five  votes  were  cast  in  the  House — those  of 
Messrs.  Burnett,  of  Kentucky,  Norton  and  Reid,  of  Missouri, 
Yallandigham,  of  Ohio,  and  Fernando  "Wood,  of  New  York. 

It  gave  the  Secretary  authority  to  issue  coupon  or  registered 
bonds  or  both,  or  Treasury  notes  of  any  denomination  not  less 
than  fifty  dollars;  the  bonds  to  be  redeemable  after  twenty 
years  from  their  date  and  to  bear  an  interest  not  exceeding  seven 
per  cent. ;  the  Treasury  notes  to  be  payable  after  three  years,  and 
to  bear  interest  at  the  rate  of  seven  and  three-tenths  per  cent, 
per  annum. 

1  These  bills  were:  "A  bill  to  authorize  a  national  loan,  and  for  other  purposes," 
and  "  a  bill  further  to  provide  for  the  collection  of  duties  on  imports,  and  for  other 
purposes."  The  latter  was  intended  especially  to  enforce  the  collection  of  customs 
duties  in  the  insurrectionary  States.  Mr.  Chase  invited  Senators  Fessendcn  and 
Collamcr  to  Washington  to  consult  with  them  in  respect  to  the  measures  embodied 
in  these  bills,  and  they  were  approved  by  them  with  some  very  slight  modifications, 
as  they  were  afterward  approved  by  Congress  in  the  same  way.  But  emphatically 
they  were  the  work  of  Mr.  Chase's  own  hand. 


TIIE  ACTION  OF  CONGRESS.  221 

And  to  issue,  also,  in  exchange  for  coin  or  in  payment  of 
salaries  or  other  dues  of  the  United  States,  Treasury  notes  of  a 
less  denomination  than  fifty  dollars,  bearing  no  interest,  but  pay 
able  on  demand,  and  (by  the  supplemental  loan  act  of  August  5, 
1861)  receivable  for  public  dues ;  or  Treasury  notes,  bearing 
interest  at  the  rate  of  three  and  sixty-five  one-hundredths  per 
cent.,  payable  one  year  after  their  date,  and  exchangeable  in 
sums  of  one  hundred  dollars  or  upward  for  the  seven-thirty 
three  years'  Treasury  notes.  The  non-interest  bearing  notes  were 
limited  to  fifty  millions  in  amount  and  to  denominations  not  less 
than  ten  dollars ;  but,  August  5th,  he  was  authorized  to  issue 
notes  under  this  clause  so  low  in  sum  as  five  dollars. 

He  was  authorized  to  negotiate  one  hundred  millions  of  the 
loan  in  Europe,  and  to  pay  the  interest  upon  it  in  Europe.  He 
was  to  fix  the  rate  of  exchange  at  which  the  principal  was  to  be 
received,  and  the  exchange  for  payment  of  principal  and  interest 
was  to  be  at  the  same  rate.  And  by  the  supplemental  loan  act 
of  August  5th,  six  per  cent,  bonds  were  authorized  to  the  amount 
of  the  seven-thirty  Treasury  notes  issued  under  the  act  of  July 
17th,  into  which  six  per  cents  the  seven-thirty  Treasury  notes 
were  to  be  convertible. 

He  was  also  authorized  to  issue  not  exceeding  twenty  mil 
lions  of  the  Treasury  notes,  of  any  of  the  denominations  named 
in  the  act,  at  an  interest  of  six  per  cent.,  and  payable  at  any 
time  not  exceeding  twelve  months  from  their  date. 

And  finally,  to  appoint  agents  to  receive  subscriptions  to  the 
loan ;  and  if  he  thought  most  expedient,  to  sell  bonds  at  the  best 
terms  he  could  obtain,  not  below  par. 

So  far  of  the  action  of  Congress  authorizing  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  to  borrow  money. 

—  The  definite  appropriations  made  during  the  extraordinary 
session  amounted  to  two  hundred  and  sixty-five  millions  of  dol- 
ars ;  and  there  were  made  indefinite  appropriations  to  a  consider 
able  amount.  The  war  service  was  voted  $207,401,397.80; 
the  naval  service,  $56,385,086.29 ;  and  for  civil  and  miscellaneous 
purposes  $1,371,873.90— total,  $265,158,357.99.  These  were  in 
addition  to  former  appropriations  unpaid  and  to  be  satisfied  out 
of  the  funds  raised  during  the  ensuing  year. 

A  large  number  of  new  offices — military  and  civil — were 


222  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

created  and  the  salaries  of  others  made  larger;  the  pay  of  the 
privates  in  the  army,  volunteer  and  regular,  was  increased  from 
eleven  to  thirteen  dollars  a  month;  bounties  of  public  lands 
were  also  added  to  their  pay ;  and  the  President  was  authorized 
to  accept  five  hundred  thousand  troops  for  the  suppression  of 
the  rebellion. 

—  An  act  was  passed  for  the  confiscation  of  the  property  of 
rebels ;  more,  however,  as  a  penal  measure  than  for  purposes  of 
revenue. 

The  duties  on  a  large  number  of  articles  were  increased, 
but  notably  on  sugars,  coffees,  teas  and  molasses;  on  brandy 
and  distilled  spirits ;  on  wines ;  and  on  silks.  A  direct  tax  of 
twenty  millions  was  apportioned  among  the  States,  thus :  Maine, 
§420,826 ;  New  Hampshire,  $218,406.66 ;  Vermont,  $211,068 ; 
Massachusetts,  $824,581.33  ;  Khode  Island,  $116,963.66 ;  Con 
necticut,  $308,214  ;  New  York,  $2,603,918.66  ;  New  Jersey, 
$450,134 ;  Pennsylvania,  $1,946,719.33 ;  Delaware,  $74,683.53 ; 
Maryland,  $436,823.33 ;  Virginia,  $937,550.66 ;  North  Carolina, 
$576,194.66 ;  South  Carolina,  $363,570.66 ;  Georgia,  $584,367.- 
33 ;  Alabama,  $529,313.33 ;  Mississippi,  $413,084.66 ;  Louisiana, 
$385,886.66;  Ohio,  $1,567,089.33 ;  Kentucky,  $713,695.33;  Tenr 
nessee,  $669,498 ;  Indiana,  $904,875.33 ;  Illinois,  $1,146,551.33 ; 
Missouri,  $761,127.33 ;  Kansas,  $71,743.33 ;  Arkansas,  $261,886 ; 
Michigan,  $501,763.33 ;  Florida,  $77,522.66 ;  Texas,  $355,106.66 ; 
Iowa,  $452,088 ;  Wisconsin,  $519,688.66;  California,  $254,538.66 ; 
Minnesota,  $108,524 ;  Oregon,  $35,140.66 ;  and  to  the  Territories, 
thus:  New  Mexico,  $62,648;  Utah,  $26,982;  Washington,  $7,- 
.  755.33 ;  Nebraska,  $19,312 ;  Nevada,  $4,592.66 ;  Colorado,  $22,- 
905.33;  Dakota,  $3,241.33;  and  to  the  District  of  Columbia, 
$49,437.33.  An  elaborate  system  for  the  collection  of  this  tax 
by  Federal  officers  was  provided,  but  any  State  electing  to  do  so 
was  authorized  to  collect  it  through  the  agency  of  its  own 
officers  "  in  its  own  way  and  manner,"  with  a  deduction  of  fif 
teen  per  cent.  A  tax  of  three  per  cent,  upon  income  in  excess 
of  eight  hundred  dollars  was  laid  by  this  act ;  but  upon  that 
portion  of  it  derived  from  securities  of  the  United  States  one- 
and  a  half  of  one  per  cent,  was  laid ;  but  upon  stocks  and  secu 
rities  and  all  other  kinds  of  property  in  the  United  States  owned 
by  citizens  of  the  United  States  residing  abroad  five  per  cent., 


HISTORY  OF  THE  DIRECT  TAX.  223 

with  the  same  exception  of  one  and  a  half  per  cent,  upon  that 
portion  of  it  derived  from  the  United  States  bonds.  This  in 
come  tax  was  to  become  operative  January  1,  1862.  In  esti 
mating  income,  taxes  of  all  kinds  were  to  be  deducted. 

The  history  of  this  direct  tax  act  is  brief,  all  its  require 
ments  having  been  suspended  for  further  action  of  Congress,1 
except  in  so  far  as  related  to  the  collection  of  the  first  annual 
direct  tax  of  $20,000,000.  All  the  States  (except  Delaware) 
and  Territories  (except  Colorado)  and  the  District  of  Columbia, 
formally  assumed  the  payment  of  their  quotas.  Of  course  the 
eleven  States  in  rebellion  did  not.  In  Delaware  and  Colorado 
provision  was  made  for  its  collection  by  internal  revenue 
officers ;  and  in  the  States  in  rebellion  by  boards  of  tax  com 
missioners.  The  whole  amount  apportioned  to  those  States  was 
§5,153,891.33,  of  which  there  yet  remains  uncollected  $2,661,- 
782.62.  Alabama  has  paid  no  part  of  her  quota.  In  some  of 
the  rebel  States  lands  estimated  to  be  worth  seven  hundred 
thousand  dollars  were  seized  and  sold  for  non-payment  of  the 
taxes,  and  were  bid  in  by  the  commissioners  for  the  benefit  of 
Government.  Utah  and  Oregon  paid  no  part  of  their  quotas — 
while  unsatisfied  balances,  to  an  aggregate  of  about  one  and  a 
half  million  dollars,  remain  standing  against  New  York,  "Wis 
consin,  Kansas,  California,  South  Carolina,  and  Delaware,  and 
the  Territories  of  Washington  and  Colorado.8  The  direct  tax 
levied  by  this  act  was  upon  real  estate  exclusively. 

The  extraordinary  session  came  to  an  end  on  the  6th  of 
August. 

Though  the  fall  of  Sumter  had  been  followed  by  a  great 
uprising  of  the  Northern  people,  and  the  determination  to  sup 
press  the  rebellion  was  universal  and  sincere,  yet  there  was  no 
really  serious  apprehension  of  a  prolonged  and  calamitous  war. 
The  shooting  of  Colonel  Ellsworth  at  Alexandria  curiously  illus 
trated  the  prevailing  general  incredulity.  The  news  excited 
in  the  North  an  astonishment  and  indignation  so  wide-spread  and 
profound  as  to  indicate  clearly  enough  how  remote  from  the 

1  July  1,  1862,  and  June  30,  1864. 

2  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue,  1870.     Since  the  date  of  the 
report  from  which  the  facts  in  the  text  are  taken,  New  York  certainly  (and  perhaps 
others  of  the  then  delinquent  States)  has  paid  its  quota. 


224  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

popular  mind  the  tremendous  reality  of  the  impending  con 
flict  was. 

The  battle  of  Bull  Run  put  an  end  to  delusion.  It  illus 
trated  instantly  and  decisively  that  the  country  had  entered 
upon  a  career  of  civil  war,  and  that  to  carry  it  successfully  for 
ward  required  large  measures. 

General  McClellan  was  called  to  "Washington  and  made 
general-in-chief.  The  reorganization  and  augmentation  of  the 
armies  involved  greatly  enlarged  expenditures,  and  hore  heavily 
upon  every  resource  at  the  command  of  the  Treasury.  The 
requirements  of  each  day  were  over  a  million  of  dollars.  For 
the  last  quarter  of  the  year  1861  the  expenses  averaged,  in  round 
numbers,  forty-eight  millions  a  month.1 

Under  authority  conferred  by  the  acts  of  the  extra  session, 
and  as  measures  of  temporary  relief,  the  Secretary  issued  $14,- 
019,034  in  six  per  cent,  two-years  Treasury  notes,  and  $12,877,- 
750  in  six  per  cent,  sixty-days  Treasury  notes.  The  first  of 
these  were  in  part  paid  to  public  creditors  and  in  part  exchanged 
for  coin  at  par;  and  the  second  in  exchange  for  money  bor 
rowed. 

Steps  were  taken  also  for  the  early  issue  of  the  currency 
afterward  popularly  known  as  the  "  demand  notes."  The  first 
of  these  appeared  in  August,  and  were  paid  to  the  clerks  in  the 
departments  for  salaries,  and  to  other  creditors  of  the  Govern 
ment.  There  was  on  their  first  appearance  a  genuine  reluctance 
on  the  part  even  of  loyal  people  to  receive  them,  and  as  a 
means  of  securing  their  credit,  the  Secretary  and  his  Assistant 
(Mr.  George  Harrington),  and  other  leading  officers  of  the 
Treasury  (and  perhaps  of  other  departments)  signed  a  paper 
agreeing  to  accept  them  in  payment  of  their  salaries ;  all  this 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  notes  were  convertible  at 
will  into  gold,  and  actually  were  so  converted  until  the  suspen 
sion  of  cash  payments  in  the  following  December.  The  mer 
chants  and  shop-keepers  at  "Washington  sought  to  discredit  them, 
and  railroad  officers  and  banks  and  bankers  in  some  instances  at 
any  rate,  and  in  different  parts  of  the  country,  refused  to  re 
ceive  them  at  all.  But  they  soon  established  themselves  in  the 

i  The  payments  from  the  Treasury  for  October,  1861,  were  $45,787,054.02 ;  No 
vember,  $55,524,675.86 ;  December,  $42,461,268.73. 


THE  NATIONAL  LOAN.  225 

public  confidence,  and  were  everywhere  preferred  to  the  State 
bank  currency.  The  whole  amount  of  these  demand  notes  in 
circulation  at  the  time  of  the  suspension  of  cash  payments  in 
the  following  December,  was  about  thirty-three  millions.1 

In  order  to  provide  for  the  permanent  and  regular  war  ex 
penditures,  the  Secretary  determined  to  engage  the  banking 
institutions  of  the  three  chief  cities  of  the  North  to  advance  the 
sums  needed,  in  the  form  of  loans  for  three-years  seven-thirty 
bonds,  to  be  reimbursed,  so  far  as  practicable,  from  the  proceeds 
of  similar  bonds  to  be  subscribed  for  by  the  people  through  the 
agencies  of  the  NATIONAL  LOAN,  using  in  the  mean  while,  in  aid 
of  these  advances,  the  power  of  issuing  United  States  small 
notes.  "  Upon  this  plan  he  hoped,"  he  said,  "  that  the  capital 
of  the  banks  and  the  people  might  be  so  combined  with  the 
credit  of  the  Government  as  to  give  efficiency  to  administrative 
action,  whether  civil  or  military,  and  competent  support  to  the 
public  credit." 

"With  these  objects  in  view,  Mr.  Chase  invited  representa 
tives  from  the  banks  of  New  York,  Boston,  and  Philadelphia, 
to  meet  him  in  the  first-named  city.8  To  this  invitation  there 
was  a  prompt  response,  August  19,  1861. 

1  More  than  one  professedly  loyal  railroad  corporation  refused  these  notes  in  pay 
ment  of  fares  and  freight ;  to  such  Mr.  Chase  wrote  remonstrances  very  brief  and 
effective.  The  writer  hereof — then  a  clerk  in  the  Treasury  Department — probably 
brought  the  first  of  these  notes  to  Philadelphia,  and  he  experienced  a  considerable 
difficulty  in  inducing  the  acceptance  of  one  of  them  at  the  Continental  Hotel.  About 
the  time  of  the  suspension  of  cash  payments,  a  wealthy  New-Yorker  came  into  the 
possession  of  a  large  sum — approximating  to  one  million  of  dollars — in  "  demand 
notes."  He  offered  them  for  deposit  in  a  leading  bank  in  New  York ;  the  officers 
of  which  refused  to  receive  them,  however,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  their  business, 
or  in  any  other  way  than  as  a  special  deposit.  Having  no  alternative,  the  gentle 
man  reluctantly  consented.  The  "  demand  notes  "  being  receivable  for  customs  the 
same  as  coin,  kept  pace  pari  passu  with  the  advance  in  the  price  of  coin  ;  and  when 

the  depositor  in  the Bank  withdrew  his  deposit,  "  demand  notes  "  were  worth 

nearly  or  quite  one  hundred  and  fifty  per  cent,  premium,  measured  in  legal  tenders ! 
Mr.  M.  B.  Field  gives  me  this  anecdote. 

9  Mr.  Thomas  S.  Townsend,  compiler  of  "  Townsend's  National  Record,"  contrib 
utes  to  the  Chronotype  for  May,  1873,  some  interesting  notes  concerning  Mr.  Chase's 
financial  management,  from  which  I  extract  the  following : 

When  Secretary  Chase  came  to  New  York  to  get  his  first  loan,  the  London  Times 
said  he  had  "  coerced  $50,000,000  from  the  banks,  but  he  would  not  fare  so  well 
at  the  London  Exchange." 

The  Economist,  a  prominent  London  financial  authority,  said :  "  It  is  utterly  out 
15 


226  WFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

The  conferences  of  the  Secretary  with  the  bank  representa 
tives  were  full  and  unreserved.  Mr.  Chase  explained  to  them 
the  situation  of  the  country ;  the  large  inevitable  expenditures 
necessary  for  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion;  his  hopes  of  a 
vigorous  prosecution  of  all  the  measures  requisite  to  that  great 
end ;  his  wishes  and  efforts  for  economy ;  his  views  of  the  in 
expediency  of  high  rates  of  interest,  which  might  suggest  a 
possibility  of  future  inability  to  pay  it,  and  his  desire  to  enlist 
their  aid  in  conducting  the  operations  of  the  Treasury. 

The  bank  representatives,  on  their  side,  explained  the  posi 
tion  of  the  banks.  They  alleged  their  disposition  to  sustain 
the  Government,  and  their  inability  to  take  more  bonds  than 
their  disposable  capital  allowed,  without  a  prospect  of  an  early 
sale  and  distribution.  They  urged  that  Mr.  Chase  was  too 
stringent  in  his  ideas  about  the  rates  of  interest ;  and  on  some 
other  points  illiberal,  and  not  sufficiently  considerate  of  their 
interests. 

There  was  danger  that  the  result  of  the  conferences  would 
not  be  satisfactory.  The  Secretary  said  he  was  sure  the  banks 

of  the  question,  in  our  judgement,  that  the  Americans  can  obtain,  either  at  home  or 
in  Europe,  any  thing  like  the  extravagant  sums  they  are  asking — for  Europe  won't 
lend  them ;  America  cannot." 

American  credit  in  Europe,  so  far  as  financial  affairs  were  concerned,  was  re 
duced  to  such  a  low  state,  and  the  destruction  of  the  Union  considered  so  certain, 
that  the  British  agent  at  Washington  for  the  London  bankers,  through  whom  our 
Government  business  was  transacted,  called  on  Sunday,  after  hearing  of  the  first 
Bull  Run  battle,  to  have  his  "  little  bill "  attended  to ;  and  requested  the  Acting 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  (Mr.  George  Harrington)  to  give  security  for  the  payment 
of  about  $40,000  of  balance  due !  The  Acting  Secretary  replied  to  this  dunning  re 
quest  by  directing  the  anxious  inquirer  to  call  on  Monday,  as  the  Government  would 
not  probably  break  up  before  business  hours  next  day. 

The  London  Times  also  uttered  this  solemn  announcement:  "JVb  pressure  that 
ever  threatened  is  equal  to  that  which  now  hangs  over  the  United  States ;  and  it  may 
safely  be  said  that  if,  in  future  generations,  they  faithfully  meet  their  liabilities,  they 
will  fairly  earn  a  fame  which  will  shine  throughout  the  world" 

The  London  Times,  in  March,  1863,  concluded  an  article  about  Secretary  Chase's 
stupendous  operations  by  exclaiming :  "  What  strength,  what  resources,  what  vital 
ity,  what  energy,  there  must  be  in  a  nation  that  is  able  to  ruin  itself  (!)  on  a  scale  so 
transcendent  and  magnificent ! " 

And  "  The  Thunderer,"  a  year  later,  complimented  the  American  financier  by 
declaring  that  "  the  hundredth  part  of  Mr.  Chase's  embarrassments  would  tax  Mr. 
Gladstone's  ingenuity  to  the  utmost,  and  set  the  [British]  public  mind  in  a  ferment 
of  excitement" 


ARRANGEMENTS  WITH  THE  BANKS.  227 

wished  to  do  all  tliat  was  in  their  power  to  support  the  Govern 
ment,  and  hoped  they  would  find  themselves  able  to  take  the 
loans  on  terms  that  could  be  admitted.  "  If  not,  I  will  go  back 
to  Washington,  and  issue  notes  for  circulation  ;  for  it  is  certain 
that  the  war  must  go  on  until  the  rebellion  is  put  down,  if  we 
have  to  put  out  paper  until  it  takes  a  thousand  dollars  to  buy  a 
breakfast."  1 

It  was  finally  agreed  that  the  banks  of  the  three  cities  should 
unite  as  associates,  and  advance  to  the  Government  fifty  millions 
of  dollars ;  five  millions  down,  and  the  rest  as  the  money  was 
wanted,  on  the  Secretary's  warrants  in  favor  of  the  assistant 
treasurers ;  and  the  Secretary  was  to  appeal  to  the  people  for 
subscriptions  to  a  national  loan  on  three-years  notes  bearing 
seven-thirty  per  cent,  interest,  and  convertible  into  twenty-year 
bonds  bearing  six  per  cent,  interest,  and  pay  over  the  proceeds 
of  these  subscriptions  to  the  banks,  in  satisfaction  of  their 
advances,  so  far  as  they  would  go,  and  to  deliver  to  them  seven- 
thirty  notes  for  any  deficiency.  The  advances  of  the  banks 
were  to  be  in  coin. 

The  stipulations  of  this  agreement  were  faithfully  fulfilled. 
Mr.  Chase  caused  subscription-books  for  the  national  loan  to  be 
opened  in  all  the  chief  cities  and  towns  of  the  loyal  States ;  the 
people  responded  with  alacrity,  and  enabled  him  to  pay  to  the 
banks  about  forty-five  millions  of  dollars — the  remainder  of 
their  advances  was  made  good  by  the  delivery  of  the  promised 
seven-thirty  three-years  bonds. 

The  operation  enabled  the  banks  to  make  to  the  Govern 
ment  a  second  loan  of  fifty  millions  on  very  nearly  the  same 
terms  as  the  first.  But  it  had  become  evident  that  the  popular 
subscriptions  would  not  continue  to  be  as  large  and  prompt  as 
before;  while  the  inconvenience  of  their  management  by  the 
department  (it  had  necessitated  a  considerable  increase  in  the 
clerical  force)  proved  to  be  very  great.  The  accounts  of  the  sub 
scription  agents  were,  therefore  closed,  and  the  notes  for  the 
second  loan  were  delivered  directly  to  the  bankers,  who  distrib- 

•  *  In  the  course  of  these  conferences  it  was  suggested  by  one  of  the  bankers  that 
the  banks  should  offer  an  ultimatum.  "No,"  said  Mr.  Chase;  "it  is  not  the  busi 
ness  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  receive  an  ultimatum,  but  to  declare  one  if 
it  shall  become  necessary." 


228  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

uted  them  as  best  suited  themselves.  This  arrangement  very 
much  simplified  the  transaction,  so  far  as  it  affected  the  Treas 
ury,  but  it  was  not  quite  so  convenient  or  advantageous  to  the 
banks. 

By  these  two  loans  the  Secretary  obtained  one  hundred 
millions  of  dollars,  paying — under  the  immediate  exigency — a 
rate  of  interest  but  one  and  three-tenths  per  cent,  higher  than 
the  ordinary  rate  of  six  per  cent.,  and  that  only  for  three  years. 

Mr.  Chase  sought  a  third  loan,  but  the  banks  declined  to  make 
it  upon  the  seven-thirties.  He  was  therefore  compelled,  by  the 
absolute  necessity  of  providing  immediate  means  for  military 
and  naval  disbursements,  to  offer  another  description  of  securi 
ties.  These  were  six  per  cent,  bonds,  which  the  act  of  July  17th 
had  authorized  the  Secretary  to  issue,  and  dispose  of  at  such  a 
deduction  from  their  face  value  as  would  make  them  equivalent 
to  seven  per  cent,  bonds  (redeemable  after  twenty  years)  at  par. 
Mr.  Chase  was  extremely  reluctant  to  avail  himself  of  this 
power,  but  the  emergency  was  great  and  pressing ;  there  was  no 
other  resource,  and  he  submitted.  Fifty  millions  in  six  per  cent, 
bonds  were  equal  to  $45,795,478.48  in  seven  per  cent,  bonds, 
redeemable  after  twenty  years ;  and  a  third  loan  was  taken  by 
the  banks  upon  this  basis,  and  the  Secretary  delivered  to  them 
fifty  millions  of  six  per  cent,  twenty-years  bonds  in  exchange  for 
$45,795,478.48  in  coin. 


CHAPTEE    XXVI. 

FIRST   "  SEVEN-THIRTY  "  NATIONAL   LOAN WHAT  THE   BANKS  WANT 
ED,    AND    MR.    CHASE    WOULD  NOT   DO A  PAPER-MONEY   WAR 

INEVITABLE — SUSPENSION   OF    CASH    PAYMENTS   BY  BANKS   AND 

GOVERNMENT,  DECEMBER  30,  1861 EXTRACTS  FROM  MR.  CHASERS 

REPORT  TO  CONGRESS MEASURES  PROPOSED  BY  HIM  —  PRO 
POSES  A  NATIONAL  CURRENCY — THE  PUBLIC  DEBT — STRENGTH 
OF  THE  ARMY  AND  OF  THE  NAVY. 

THE  first  hundred  millions  borrowed  by  the  Secretary  from 
the  banks  were  stipulated  to  be  repaid  with  funds  received 
from  the  sale  of  the  seven-thirty  notes  through  the  agencies  for 
the  national  loan.  Mr.  Chase  appointed  one  hundred  and  forty- 
eight  agents  (these  were  exclusive  of  the  Treasury  agencies 
proper) ;  among  them  Mr.  Jay  Cooke,  of  Philadelphia.  The 
Secretary  allowed  to  these  agents  one-fifth  of  one  per  cent,  upon 
the  first  hundred  thousand  dollars  of  subscriptions  obtained  by 
them  respectively,  and  one-eighth  of  one  per  cent,  upon  all  sums 
in  excess;  and,  in  .addition  to  these  commissions,  they  were 
allowed  stipulated  amounts,  varying  according  to  locality,  for 
advertising  purposes,  but  in  no  single  instance  exceeding  one 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  The  several  agents  returned  subscrip 
tions  amounting  in  the  aggregate  to  $24,678,866.84,  of  which 
sum  Mr.  Jay  Cooke  had  obtained  $5,224,050,*  or  more  than  one- 
fifth  of  the  whole.  He  was  paid  the  fixed  percentage,  which 
aggregated  $6,680.06 ;  and,  though  he  exhibited  vouchers  show 
ing  disbursements  for  advertising  to  the  amount  of  $3,041.44 
(he  had  made  other  outlays  for  advertising  for  which  he  had  no 

1  This  large  sum  was  subscribed  in  and  about  the  city  of  Philadelphia. 


230  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

specific  vouchers),  lie  was  paid  but  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
on  that  account.  It  was  the  energy  and  success  of  Mr.  Cooke  in 
this  particular  instance  that  first  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
Secretary  (who  had  not  known  him  before),  and  led  to  that  offi 
cial  connection  which  was  afterward  so  useful  to  the  Govern 
ment. 

The  banks  had  constantly  and  strongly  urged  Mr.  Chase  to 
forego  the  issue  of  United  States  notes,  and  to  draw  directly 
upon  them  for  the  sums  subscribed  and  placed  upon  their  books 
to  the  credit  of  the  Treasury.  "In  what  funds,"  asked  the 
Secretary,  "will  my  drafts  be  paid?"  "We  in  New  York," 
was  the  answer,  "  are  entirely  willing  to  pay  in  coin."  "  But, 
suppose  you  in  New  York  give  checks  to  the  Government  cred 
itor  upon  Cincinnati  or  St.  Louis,  in  what  kind  of  funds  will  the 
checks  be  paid  at  those  points?"  "In  whatever  funds  the 
check-holder  would  be  willing  to  receive  his  pay.  That  is,  in 
coin  if  the  creditor  insists  upon  coin,  and  the  bank  is  able  and 
willing  to  pay  in  coin ;  but,  if  otherwise,  in  bank-notes."  To 
this  the  Secretary  said  he  could  not  consent.  He  was  asked  to 
borrow  the  credit  of  local  banks  in  the  form  of  circulation ;  but 
he  preferred  to  put  the  credit  of  the  people  into  notes,  and  use 
them  as  money.  "  If  you  can  lend  me  all  the  coin  required  to 
conduct  the  operations  of  the  war,  or  show  me  where  I  can  bor 
row  it  elsewhere  at  fair  rates,  I  will  withdraw  every  note  already 
issued,  and  pledge  myself  never  to  issue  another ;  but  if  you 
cannot,  you  must  let  me  stick  to  United  States  notes  and  in 
crease  their  issue  just  so  far  as  the  deficiency  of  coin  may  make 
necessary." 

This  was  the  language  of  Mr.  Chase  to  4  the  bankers  on  the 
16th  of  November,  1861,  when  he  negotiated  with  them  the 
third  fifty-millions  loan.  His  resolution  was  seen  to  be  unalter 
able,  and  was  followed  by  important  consequences. 

The  vast  operations  of  the  war  being  now  superadded  to  the 
current  business  of  the  country  was  rapidly  modifying  the  con 
ditions  of  the  currency.  If  it  be  admitted  that  the  active  coin 
circulation  amounted  to  two  hundred  and  ten  millions  on  the 
16th  of  November  (Mr.  Chase  estimated  the  coin  in  circulation 
at  that  time,  including  that  held  by  the  banks,  at  probably  not 
less  than  $210,000,000 ;  but  it  was  less),  and  that  it  could  be 


SUSPENSION  OF  SPECIE  PAYMENTS.  231 

steadily  preserved  at  that  sum,  it  was  still  clearly  inadequate  to 
the  largely-increased  requirements.  The  enormous  expenditures 
of  the  Government  would  alone  absorb  it  several  times  in  the 
course  of  each  year,  either  in  the  form  of  taxes  or  of  loans ;  the 
banks  would  thus  be  depleted  of  the  coin  necessary  to  redeem 
their  notes ;  and  the  Government  itself,  in  the  inevitable  delay 
of  collecting,  transporting,  and  disbursing  it  at  widely-separated 
points,  could  have  the  actual  use  of  but  a  relatively  small  part 
of  it  at  any  one  time.  Nothing  was  more  certain,  in  these  cir 
cumstances,  than  the  enforced  use  by  both  Government  and 
people,  of  paper  money,  and  that  the  banks  would  expand  their 
issues  to  the  utmost  limits  compatible — not  with  safety — but 
with  profit. 

It  speedily  became  apparent  also  that  the  banks  could  not 
dispose  of  their  bonds  for  coin,  and  that  they  could  not  meet 
their  obligations  in  coin  ;  and,  moreover,  that  the  bank-note 
circulation  could  not  be  sustained  at  the  par  of  coin.  To  make 
that  circulation  receivable  by  the  Government  in  payment  of 
public  dues  could  only  be  done  at  the  risk  of  irretrievable  finan 
cial  embarrassments  and  disorders. 

Suspension  became  inevitable.  Some  of  the  banks  which 
had  subscribed  to  the  seven  per  cent,  (the  third  fifty  millions) 
loan  declined  to  pay  in  coin,  and  even  asked  to  be  relieved  from 
payment  in  notes  of  the  United  States. 

On  the  27th  of  December,  1861,  the  banks  agreed  to  suspend 
specie  payments,  and  did  suspend  on  the  30th  of  December 
following.  Consequent  upon  this  action  of  the  banks,  the  Gov 
ernment  had  no  alternative  but  to  dishonor  its  own  promises, 
and  it  did  so.  It  ceased  to  pay  coin ;  and  from  the  morning  of 
January  1,  1862,  new  elements  entered  into  the  WAR  FINANCES, 
and  they  were  elements  of  danger  and  destruction.  That  they 
were  escaped,  and  the  supplies  met  promptly  and  regularly,  was 
due  to  the  wise  and  firm  policy  now  adopted  by  Mr.  Secretary 
Chase. 

It  need  scarcely  be  added,  that  this  action  of  the  banks  of 
New  York  and  the  Government  was  promptly  followed  by  the 
banks  throughout  the  country. 

Preceding  the  suspension,  however,  on  the  9th  of  December, 
1861,  Mr.  Chase  submitted  his  second  report  to  Congress.  He 


232  LEFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

exhibited  a  summary  of  the  results  of  his  operations  up  to  the 
30th  of  November : 

There  were  paid  to  creditors,  or  exchanged  for  coin  at 
par,  at  different  times  in  July  and  August,  two 
years'  six  per  cent,  notes  to  the  amount  of  .  .  $14,019,034  66 

There  was  borrowed  at  par,  in  the  same  months,  upon 

sixty  days'  six  per  cent,  notes  the  sum  of  .  .  12,877,750  00 

There  was  borrowed  at  par,  on  the  19th  of  August,  upon 
three  years'  seven-thirty  bonds,  issued  for  the 
most  part  to  subscribers  to  the  National  Loan,  .  50,000,000  00 

There  was  borrowed,  October  1st,  on  the  like  securities,        50,000,000  00 

The're  was  borrowed  at  par,  for  seven  per  cent.,  on  the 
16th  of  November,  upon  twenty  years'  six  per 
cent,  bonds  reduced  to  the  equivalent  of  sevens, 
including  interest 45,795,478  48 

There  were  issued,  and  were  in  circulation  and  on  de 
posit  with  the  Treasurer,  November  30th,  of  de 
mand  notes  24,242,588  14 

Making  an  aggregate  realized  from  loans  in  various 

forms  of $197,242,588  14 

The  receipts  from  the  customs,  which  he  had  in  July  esti 
mated  at  fifty-seven  millions  for  the  fiscal  year  1862,  he  now 
stated  would  not  probably  exceed  $32,198,602.55.  The  actual 
receipts  for  the  first  quarter  of  the  year  had  been  $7,198,602.55  ; 
the  remaining  three-quarters  could  not  be  expected  to  yield  over 
$25,000,000.  He  reduced  the  estimated  receipts  from  public 
lands  and  miscellaneous  sources  from  $3,000,000  to  $2,354,000. 
The  aggregate  revenue  from  all  sources,  therefore  (including  the 
direct  tax  of  twenty  millions),  he  reduced  to  $54,552,665.44, 
being  $25,447,334.56  less  than  the  estimate  of  July.  He  attrib 
uted  this  difference  between  his  former  estimates  and  the  actual 
results  to  the  fact  that  Congress  had  not  adopted — at  the  July 
session — the  scale  of  duties  he  had  proposed  upon  tea,  coffee  and 
sugar,  and  more  especially  to  the  changed  circumstances  of  the 
country,  which  had  proved,  even  beyond  anticipation,  unfavor 
able  to  foreign  commerce.  But  large  as  this  reduction  was, 
it  would  not — he  said — have  compelled  him  to  ask  additional 
powers  for  the  negotiation  of  loans  beyond  those  asked  for  in 
his  July  report,  had  appropriations  and  expenditures  been  con- 


ESTIMATES  AND  RECOMMENDATIONS.  .      233 

fined  within  the  estimates  then  submitted.  Those  estimates  had 
been  made  upon  the  understanding  that  it  would  be  necessary 
to  bring  into  the  field  an  aggregate  of  three  hundred  thousand 
men,  volunteers  and  regulars ;  but  after  the  estimates  had  been 
furnished  to  him  and  his  report  closed,  the  President  had  thought 
it  expedient  to  ask  for  four  hundred  thousand  men  and  four 
hundred  millions  of  dollars.  Congress  went  even  beyond  the 
recommendation  of  the  President,  and  had  authorized  the  ac 
ceptance  of  five  hundred  thousand  volunteers.  The  large  in 
crease  of  the  army  and  navy  in  men  and  officers — whose  pay 
and  rations  had  also  been  liberally  increased — had  augmented 
and  would  continue  to  augment  the  expenditures  far  beyond 
the  limit  indicated  in  the  original  estimates,  and  the  limit  would 
have  to  be  still  further  extended  by  the  sums  required  for  the 
increase  of  the  navy  and  other  objects.  Large  additional  appro 
priations  were  therefore  necessary — of  these  $47,985,566.61  were 
in  consequence  of  expenditures  authorized  at  the  last  session, 
$143,130,927.76  were  for  future  demands  ;  making  an  increase, 
including  $22,787,933.31  for  indefinite  appropriations  and  re 
demption  of  temporary  debt,  beyond  the  estimates,  of  July,  of 
$213,904,427.68. 

To  provide  the  sums  needed,  the  Secretary  proposed : 
The  reduction  of  expenditure  within  the  narrowest  possible 
limits ;  contracts  of  every  description  to  be  subjected  to  strict 
supervision,  and  contractors  to  rigorous  responsibility  ;  the  abo 
lition  of  unnecessary  offices  and  reduction  of  salaries  ;  forfeiture 
of  the  property  of  rebels  ;  that  the  duties  on  brown  sugar  should 
be  increased  to  two  and  one-half  cents  per  pound ;  on  clayed 
sugar  to  three  cents ;  on  green  tea  to  twenty  cents  per  pound ; 
and  to  five  cents  per  pound  on  coffee ;  but  thought  no  other 
alterations  in  the  tariff  would  be  expedient,  unless  changed 
circumstances  should  show  their  necessity.  He  proposed  to  in 
crease  the  direct  tax  so  as  to  produce  from  the  loyal  States  an 
annual  revenue  of  twenty  millions  of  dollars ;  and  to  lay  such 
duties  on  stills  and  distilled  liquors,  on  tobacco,  on  bank-notes, 
on  carriages,  on  legacies,  on  paper  evidences  of  debt  and  instru 
ments  for  conveyance  of  property,  and  other  similar  subjects 
of  taxation,  as  would  produce  twenty  millions  ;  and  some  modi 
fication  in  the  income  tax,  which  he  declared  to  be  just  in  prin- 


234  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

ciple,  would  probably  produce  ten  millions  more — making  an 
aggregate  derived  from  internal  taxation  of  fifty  millions  of, 
dollars.  He  conceded  that  this  sum  was  large,  but  as  the  public 
necessities  were  also  great,  he  felt  that  he  could  not  shrink  from 
a  plain  statement  of  the  demands  of  the  situation.  But  the 
means  of  the  people  were  extensive,  and  the  objects  to  be  at 
tained  by  a  consecration  of  a  portion  of  them  to  the  public 
service  were  priceless.  The  value  of  the  real  property  of  the 
loyal  States  he  stated,  in  round  numbers,  at  seven  and  a  half 
thousands  of  millions ;  the  personal  property  at  three  and  a  half 
thousands  of  millions  ;  and  their  annual  surplus  earnings  at  not 
less  than  three  hundred  millions.  Four  mills  on  each  dollar,  or 
two-fifths  of  one  per  cent,  on  their  real  and  personal  property, 
would  produce  forty-four  millions ;  to  this  sum  the  proposed  in 
come  tax  would  probably  add  ten  millions.  The  whole  sum  would 
be  little  more  than  one-sixth  of  the  annual  surplus  earnings ;  and 
he  thought  such  a  tax  could  certainly  be  paid  without  incon 
venience.  However,  the  amount  to  be  derived  from  taxes  formed 
but  a  small  portion  of  the  whole  sums  required  for  the  expenses 
of  the  war ;  the  chief  reliance  was  necessarily  upon  loans.  But 
he  made  no  recommendation  as  to  the  powers  with  which  it 
might  be  expedient  to  invest  him  with  respect  to  future  negoti 
ations.  He  referred  that  to  the  better  judgment  of  Congress, 
but  suggested  that  the  rates  of  interest — whatever  discretion 
might  be  otherwise  given  to  him — should  be  fixed  by  law ;  and 
he  submitted  his  views  of  a  NATIONAL  CURRENCY  with  great  full 
ness,  as  appears  elsewhere. 

Mr.  Chase  then  summarized  the  estimated  receipts  and  ex 
penditures  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1862 :  the  total 
of  receipts  from  all  sources — taxes  and  loans — being  $329,501,- 
994.38;  and  of  expenditures,  $543,406,422.06;  showing  the 
apparent  amount  for  which  recourse  must  be  had  to  future  loans 
of  $213,904,427.68. 

In  order  to  complete  the  view  of  the  financial  situation,  he 
summarized  the  facts  and  probabilities  of  the  PUBLIC  DEBT  : l 

1  The  Secretary  up  to  the  date  of  this  report  had  reimbursed  to  the  States  of 
Illinois,  Indiana,  Iowa,  Maine,  Massachusetts,  Michigan,  New  Jersey,  New  Hamp 
shire,  Ohio,  Pennsylvania,  Rhode  Island,  and  Wisconsin,  the  sum  of  $4,514,078.51, 
being  40  per  cent,  of  the  sums  they  had  severally  advanced  on  account  of  war  ex- 


STRENGTH  OF  ARMY  AND  NAVY  JULY,   1861. 


235 


July  1,  1860,  the  debt  was 
July  1,  1861,  the  debt  was     . 
July  1,  1862,  it  would  probably  be 


$64,769,703  08 

90,867,828  68 

517,372,802  93 


The  estimated  strength  of  the  army  at  the  date  of  this  re 
port  was  as  follows : 


Volunteers. 
557,208 

Keg-ulars. 

11,175 

Aggregate. 
568,383 

54,654 

4,744 

59,398 

Artillery  .... 

20,380 

4,308 

24,688 

Riflemen  and  sharpshooters 
Engineers  .... 

8,395 

107 

8,395 
107 

Total 


640,637         20,334        660,971 


These  were  for  three  years  "  or  the  war  " — in  addition  were 
77,875  three-months  troops,  making  an  actual  aggregate  of 
718,512. 

The  increase  in  the  naval  forces  was  proportionate.  On  the 
4th  of  March,  1861,  the  navy  consisted  of  forty-two  vessels, 
carrying  five  hundred  and  fifty-five  guns  and  about  seven  thou 
sand  six  hundred  men.  December  2,  1861,  the  number  of 
vessels  in  the  navy  (including  some  in  course  of  construction 
and  some  purchased  vessels  in  course  of  equipment)  was  two 
hundred  and  sixty-four,  carrying  twenty-five  hundred  and  fifty- 
five  guns  and  twenty-two  thousand  men. 

An  act  was  passed  and  approved  December  24th,  by  which 
the  duties  on  tea,  coffee,  sugar,  etc.,  were  fixed  at  the  rates  pro 
posed  by  Mr.  Chase.  This  was  the  only  fiscal  legislation  of  the 
second  session  of  the  Thirty-seventh  Congress  preceding  the 
close  of  the  year,  and  the  suspension  of  cash  payments,  Decem 
ber  31,  1861. 

penses.  Before  sending  to  Congress  the  report  from  which  these  figures  are  ex 
tracted,  Mr.  Chase  was  asked  by  some  prominent  financial  gentlemen  of  New  York 
to  make  the  best  showing  he  could,  and  very  particularly  to  state  the  public  debt 
and  its  probabilities  at  the  lowest  possible  sum.  To  this  Mr.  Chase  replied,  that 
this  would  not  be  compatible  with  his  views  of  duty ;  that  he  felt  bound  to  state  the 
facts  as  they  were ;  and  if  the  reader  will  take  the  trouble  to  compare  his  estimates 
with  the  results  of  the  debt,  he  will  see  how  nearly  they  approximate.  On  the  30th 
of  June,  1862,  it  was  $514,211,371.62;  and  on  the  30th  of  June,  1863,  it  was 
$1,098,793,181.37 — his  estimate  in  his  report  of  December,  1862,  having  been 
$1,122,297,403.24. 


UNI 


CHAPTER   XXVII. 

MILITARY  AND  FINANCIAL  SITUATION  IN  JANUARY,  1862  —  -A  HARD- 
MONEY  WAR  IMPRACTICABLE  -  PROPOSAL  OF  MR.  THADDEUS 
STEVENS  TO  ISSUE  LEGAL-TENDER  PAPER  MONEY  -  MR.  CHASE*  S 
OPPOSITION  TO  THIS  PROPOSAL  -  EXTRACTS  FROM  HIS  LETTERS 
AND  REPORTS  ON  THE  SUBJECT  —  HIS  EFFORTS  TO  AVODD  THE 
LEGAL  TENDER  -  FAILURE  OF  THESE  EFFORTS,  AND  SUBMITS  TO 
AN  UNAVOIDABLE  NECESSITY  -  OPINIONS  OF  REPUBLICAN  REP 
RESENTATIVES  AND  SENATORS  ON  THE  LEGAL  TENDER  -  PAS 
SAGE  OF  THE  LEGAL-TENDER  ACT  -  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  FD7TY 
MILLION  DOLLARS  AUTHORIZED  -  A  SECOND  EMISSION  OF  ONE 
HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY  MILLION  DOLLARS  SANCTIONED  BY  CON 
GRESS  -  SUMMARY  OF  THE  WHOLE  ISSUES  AUTHORIZED  - 
EFFECTS  OF  THE  LEGAL  TENDER. 


situation,  military  and  financial,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
JL  year  1862,  was  gloomy  and  inauspicious.  The  "  Trent 
affair  "  had  culminated  that  day  in  the  release  of  the  rebel  en 
voys,  Mason  and  Slidell,  from  their  imprisonment  in  Fort  War 
ren,  and  the  recommencement  of  their  journey,  from  Boston 
Harbor,  toward  England. 

The  whole  course  of  the  Trent  transactions  had  been  a  sore 
wound  to  the  national  pride.  Men  of  all  parties  felt  that 
England  had  conducted  them  in  a  characteristic  spirit  of  insult 
and  menace.  The  history  of  this  "  affair  "  is  brief  : 

On  the  8th  of  November,  1861,  Captain  Charles  Wilkes  — 
commanding  the  sloop-of-war  San  Jacinto,  then  cruising  in  the 
Bahama  Channel  —  forcibly  detained  the  English  mail-steamer 
Trent,  and  took  from  aboard  of  her  James  M.  Mason  and  John 


THE  "TRENT  AFFAIR."  237 

Slidell,  who  were  making  their  way  to  England  as  emissaries  of 
the  Confederate  Government.  They  were  brought  to  the  United 
States  and  lodged  as  political  prisoners  in  Fort  Warren. 

The  news  of  this  capture  was  received  in  the  United  States 
with  pride  and  exultation ;  in  England  with  a  storm  of  anger. 
The  British  flag,  it  was  almost  universally  declared,  had  been 
insulted  and  outraged,  and  a  reparation  must  be  exacted  as  ample 
as  the  offense  had  been  great.  Her  Majesty's  Government  was 
prompt  to  action ;  it  was  instantly  as  industrious  in  preparing 
for  war  as  if  war  had  been  actually  declared. 

A  special  messenger  was  immediately  dispatched  to  "Wash 
ington,  carrying  private  instructions  to  the  British  minister — 
which,  however,  for  entirely  obvious  reasons,  were  made  public 
at  the  earliest  opportunity.  Lord  Lyons  was  instructed  to  exact 
not  only  the  immediate  release  of  the  Confederate  emissaries, 
but  an  ample  apology  also.  "Should  Mr.  Seward  ask  time," 
said  Lord  Eussell  to  Lord  Lyons,  "  for  the  consideration  of  this 
grave  and  serious  matter,  you  will  allow  not  exceeding  seven 
days."  Not  exceeding  seven  days!  On  this  occasion,  at  any 
rate,  Mr.  Lincoln's  Government  was  uncommonly  efficient,  and 
in  six  days  Mason  and  Slidell  were  delivered  up. 

There  was  little  in  the  military  situation  at  that  time  to 
compensate  for  the  deep  humiliation  of  the  Trent  business. 
Quite  otherwise  indeed.  Nothing  at  all  had  been  accomplished ; 
and  the  vast  armies  of  the  republic — excepting  that  under  Grant 
in  the  West — lay  inactive.  The  public  heart  was  sore  and  rest 
less  ;  and  a  great  clamor  suddenly  arose.  A  victim  was  needed. 
The  administration  of  the  War  Department  was  famously  in 
competent  ;  it  commanded  the  confidence  neither  of  the  Presi 
dent  nor  of  the  people.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the 
public  exasperation  concentrated  itself  furiously  upon  Mr.  Cam 
eron.  Mr.  Lincoln  promptly  seized  an  opportunity  he  had  long 
wished ;  he  sent  a  note  of  three  lines  to  Mr.  Cameron,  inform 
ing  him  that  the  President  had  made  up  his  mind  to  accept  his 
(Mr.  Cameron's)  resignation  as  Secretary  of  War.  Mr.  Came 
ron,  however,  had  not  offered  any  resignation,  either  verbal  or 
written.  But  he  went  out  of  office,  and  was  succeeded  on  the 
13th  of  January  by  Edwin  M.  Stanton. 

Some  military  successes  followed  promptly  upon  Mr.  Stan- 


238  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

ton's  accession;  the  victory  at  Fishing  Creek,  the  capture  of 
Forts  Henry  and  Donelson,  and  of  Roanoke  Island.  They 
were  utterly  indecisive,  it  is  true,  but  they  were  important  dis 
asters  to  the  insurgents ;  who,  however,  exhibited  no  signs  of 
weakness  nor  of  yielding ;  contrariwise,  they  seemed  to  be  in 
spired  to  new  and  more  vigorous  efforts. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  government  was  now  in  the  midst  of  great 
difficulties.  The  magnitude  of  the  war  was  enormously  beyond 
all  expectation;  and  the  wisest  could  not  forecast  its  issue. 
Though  at  peace  with  foreign  nations,  our  foreign  relations  were 
a  subject  of  more  or  less  anxiety.  At  home  the  political  ele 
ments  were  not  united  in  support  of  the  war.  Instead  of  the 
army  of  four  hundred  thousand  men  proposed  by  the  President 
at  the  extra  session  in  July,  1861,  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand  had  been  accepted  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  new  year, 
and  recruiting  still  went  on.  To  support  this  immense  soldiery, 
and  an  extensively  enlarged  navy,  required  great  resources — but 
the  Treasury  was  almost  empty.  The  public  debt  already  reached 
three  hundred  millions  of  dollars  (January  28th),  and  one  hun 
dred  millions  were  overdue.  The  daily  expenditures  approxi 
mated  to  two  millions ;  three  hundred  and  fifty  millions  were 
necessary  to  carry  the  Government  through  to  the  end  of  the 
fiscal  year  (June  30,  1862),1  while  upon  the  best  showing  the 
existing  resources  of  the  Treasury  would  be  exhausted  in  less 
than  fifty  days.  Income  from  taxes  was  hopelessly  inadequate ; 
loans  could  not  be  procured,  except  of  bank-notes  and  upon  in 
admissible  discounts ;  the  public  necessities  pressed  inexorably, 
and  the  people  were  impatient  and  clamorous.  Delay  was  dan 
gerous,  therefore,  in  every  aspect. 

The  suspension  of  cash  payments  by  the  Government,  as  well 
as  by  the  banks,  developed  that  a  resort  to  PAPER  MONEY  had  be 
come  unavoidable.  A  "hard-money"  war  was  impracticable. 
The  Treasury  was  forced  to  make  choice,  therefore,  between  the 
inconvertible  notes  of  the  local  banks  and  the  inconvertible  notes 

1  These  were  the  estimates  of  Mr.  E.  G.  Spaulding,  of  Buffalo,  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  on  the  28th  of  January,  1862.  They  were  not  borne  out  by  the 
facts  as  they  existed  June  30,  1862;  but  they  are  quoted  as  showing  the  reasons 
upon  which  action  on  the  legal  tender  was  largely  founded  at  the  time  of  its  discus 
sion  in  January  and  February,  1862. 


OPPOSES  GOVERNMENT  ISSUES.  239 

of  the  Government.  In  either  case  expansion  was  inevitable : 
in  the  first,  the  issues  would  have  been  determined  only  by  con 
siderations  of  bank  profit ;  in  the  second,  by  the  public  necessi 
ties — as  afterward  happened. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  the  Finance  Committees 
of  both  Senate  and  House  agreed  fully  as  to  the  inexpediency 
of  using  bank-notes,  and  in  the  policy  of  issuing  a  circulation 
founded  upon  the  public  faith.  They  did  not  agree,  however, 
as  to  the  character  of  this  circulation. 

Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens,  representing  the  paper-money  idea  in 
its  simplest  form,  proposed  the  issue  of  United  States  notes  to 
an  amount  adequate  to  the  wants  of  the  Treasury,  which  should 
be  receivable  in  payment  of  Government  dues  of  every  kind, 
and  be  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  all  debts  both  public  and 
private.  But  Mr.  Chase  had  already,  in  his  report  to  Congress 
made  on  the  9th  of  December,  1861,  expressed  his  aversion  to  a 
circulation  of  United  States  notes  even  when  convertible  into 
coin.  He  admitted  that  the  substitution  of  a  national  for  a  State 
circulation  would  not  be  without  benefits ;  the  people  would  gain 
the  advantage  of  a  uniform  currency,  and  relief  from  a  considera 
ble  burden  in  the  form  of  interest  upon  debt.  If  a  scheme  could 
be  devised  by  which  such  a  circulation  would  be  certainly  and 
strictly  confined  within  the  real  needs  of  the  people,  arid  kept 
constantly  equivalent  to  specie  by  prompt  and  certain  redemp 
tion  in  coin,  it  could  hardly  fail  of  legislative  sanction.  But  he 
expressed  his  apprehension  that  it  would  be  attended  with  seri 
ous  hazards  and  inconveniences.  The  temptation,  especially 
great  in  times  of  pressure  and  danger,  to  issue  notes  without  ad 
equate  provision  for  redemption ;  the  ever-present  liability  to  be 
called  on  for  redemption  beyond  means,  however  carefully  pro 
vided  and  managed ;  the  hazard  of  panics,  precipitating  demands 
for  coin  concentrated  on  a  few  points  and  a  single  fund ;  the 
risk  of  a  depreciated,  depreciating,  and  finally  worthless  paper 
money;  the  immeasurable  evils  of  dishonored  public  faith  and* 
national  bankruptcy :  all  these  were  possible  consequences  of  a 
system  of  government  circulation.  It  might  be  truly  said,  per 
haps,  that  they  would  be  less  deplorable  than  those  of  an  irre 
deemable  State-bank  circulation ;  but  the  possible  disasters  of 
the  plan  so  far  outweighed  its  probable  benefits,  that  Tie  felt  him- 


240  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

self  constrained  to  for~bear  recommending  its  adoption.1  These 
words  were  written  of  a  system  the  basis  of  which  was  coin, 
and  under  which,  as  was  supposed,  the  convertibility  of  the 
notes  into  gold  and  silver  would  be  steadily  sustained.8 

Mr.  Chase  was  not  without  a  remedy,  however.  In  order  to 
supply  a  sound  and  uniform  currency — one  entirely  adequate  to 
the  wants  of  the  country  at  the  same  time  that  it  furnished  a 
sure  guarantee  against  excessive  issues  and  uncertain  value  and 
credit — he  proposed  that  system  of  NATIONAL  BANKING  ASSOCI 
ATIONS  which  at  a  later  period  was  authorized  by  the  action  of 
Congress.  The  principal  features  of  this  system  he  explained  to 
be:  First,  a  circulation  of  notes  bearing  a  common  impression 
and  authenticated  by  a  common  authority  (that  of  the  national 
Government);  second,  the  redemption  of  these  notes  by  the 
associations  and  institutions  to  which  they  were  to  be  delivered 
for  issue;  and,  third,  the  security  of  that  redemption  by  the 
pledge  of  United  States  stocks,  and  an  adequate  provision  of  spe- 

1  The  reflections  of  Mr.  Hamilton  upon  this  point  are  too  full  of  wisdom  to  be 
omitted  :  "  The  emitting  of  paper  money  by  the  authority  of  Government  is  wisely 
prohibited  to  the  individual  States  by  the  Constitution,  and  the  spirit  of  that  prohi 
bition  ought  not  to  be  disregarded  by  the  Government  of  the  United  States.  Though 
paper  emissions  under  a  general  authority  might  have  some  advantages  not  appli 
cable,  and  be  free  from  some  disadvantages  which  are  applicable  to  the  like  emissions 
by  the  States  separately,  yet  they  are  of  a  nature  so  liable  to  abuse — and,  it  may  be 
affirmed,  so  certain  of  being  abused — that  the  wisdom  of  the  Government  will  be 
shown  in  never  trusting  itself  with  the  use  of  so  seducing  and  dangerous  an  expedi 
ent.  In  times  of  tranquillity  it  might  have  no  ill  consequence ;  it  might  even  perhaps 
be  managed  in  a  way  to  be  productive  of  good";  but  in  great  and  trying  emergencies 
there  is  almost  a  moral  certainty  of  its  becoming  mischievous.  The  stamping  of 
paper  is  an  operation  so  much  easier  than  the  laying  of  taxes,  that  a  Government  in 
the  practice  of  paper  emissions  would  rarely  fail,  in  any  such  emergency,  to  indulge 
itself  too  far  in  that  resource,  to  avoid  as  much  as  possible  one  less  auspicious  to 
present  popularity.  If  it  should  not  even  be  carried  so  far  as  to  be  rendered  an 
absolute  bubble,  it  would  at  least  be  likely  to  be  extended  to  a  degree  which  would 
occasion  an  inflated  and  artificial  state  of  things,  incompatible  with  the  regular  and 
prosperous  course  of  the  political  economy." — (See  Alexander  Hamilton's  "  Report 
'on  a  United  States  Bank.") 

8  Mr.  Chase,  prior  to  his  annual  report  submitted  to  Congress,  December  9,  1861, 
was  confident  there  would  be  no  suspension  of  cash  payments.  Mr.  Maunsell  B. 
Field,  in  his  book,  "  Memories  of  Many  Men  and  of  Some  Women,"  mentions  (pp. 
255,  256)  two  conversations  between  Mr.  Chase  and  Mr.  John  J.  Cisco,  in  both  of 
which  the  former  declared  emphatically  that  so  long  as  he  was  Secretary  there 
should  be  no  suspension. 


THE  NATIONAL  CURRENCY  SYSTEM.  241 

cie.1  By  this  plan  private  capital  would  be  joined  with  the  pub 
lic  faith ;  and  the  people,  in  their  ordinary  business,  would  reap 
the  advantages  of  uniformity  in  currency;  of  uniformity  in 
security ;  of  effectual  safeguard,  if  effectual  safeguard  was  pos 
sible,  against  depreciation  ;  and  of  protection  from  losses  in  dis 
counts  and  exchanges ;  while  in  the  operations  of  the  Govern 
ment  the  people  would  find  the  further  advantages  of  a  large 
demand  for  Government  securities,"  of  increased  facilities  for 
obtaining  the  loans  required  by  the  war,  and  of  some  alleviation 
of  the  burdens  on  industry  through  a  diminution  in  the  rate  of 
interest,  or  a  participation  in  the  profits  of  circulation,  without 
risking  the  perils  of  a  great  money  monopoly.  If  a  credit  circu 
lation  was  desirable  in  any  form,  it  would,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
Secretary,  be  most  desirable  in  this.  The  notes  thus  issued  and 
secured  would,  in  his  judgment,  be  the  safest  currency  the  coun 
try  ever  enjoyed  ;  they  would  be  of  equal  value  in  every  part 
of  the  Union.  By  adopting  this  system,  the  whole  circulation 
of  the  country^  except  a  small  amount  of  foreign  coin,  would, 
after  the  lapse  of  two  or  three  years,  bear  the  impress  of  the 
nation  whether  in  coin  or  notes ;  while  the  amount  of  the  lat 
ter,  always  easily  ascertainable,  and  always  generally  known, 
would  not  be  likely  to  be  increased  beyond  the  real  wants  of 
business.  Of  course  it  was  necessary  to  the  successful  working 
of  this  plan  that  the  State-bank  circulation  should  be  withdrawn 
and  this  national  circulation  substituted  in  its  stead.  He  pro 
posed,  therefore,  that  Congress  should  offer  inducements  to  the 
solvent  institutions  of  the  country  to  consent  to  this  substitu 
tion  ;  and  expressed  his  conviction  that  no  argument  was  neces 
sary  to  establish  the  constitutionality  of  the  proposed  plan. 

In  order  to  make  this  plan  effective  for  the  purposes  for 
which  it  was  designed,  prompt  action  was  necessary  on  the  part 
of  Congress.  Mr.  Chase  accordingly  submitted  a  bill  embody 
ing  the  principles  proposed ;  but  the  prevailing  sentiment  of 
Congress  was  decidedly  hostile,  and  the  almost  united  influence 

1  In  his  report  of  December,  1862,  the  Secretary,  while  renewing  his  recommen 
dations  for  a  system  of  national  bank  circulation,  declared  with  emphasis  that  he 
proposed  "  no  mere  paper-money  scheme,  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  series  of  measures 
looking  to  a  safe  and  gradual  return  to  gold  and  silver  as  the  only  permanent  basis, 
standard  and  measure  of  values  recognized  by  the  Constitution." 

16 


LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

of  the  State  banks — a  powerful  interest  in  the  country — was 
against  it.  As  stated  in  another  place  in  this  volume,  the  most 
that  was  done  at  that  session  was  permission  granted  to  Mr. 
Hooper  to  introduce  a  bill  providing  for  a  system  of  national 
banking  associations,  upon  which,  however,  no  action  was  had. 

The  proposal  to  establish  a  circulation  of  United  States  notes 
in  amount  wholly  at  the  discretion  of  Congress,  and  exclusively 
within  the  management  and  control  of  the  Treasury  Depart 
ment,  excited  in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Chase  serious  apprehensions  of 
disaster ;  but  to  invest  these  same  notes,  irredeemable  in  coin,  with 
the  character  of  legal  tender  in  payment  of  both  public  and  pri 
vate  debts,  and  necessarily  retroactive  in  its  scope  and  operation, 
filled  him  with  an  almost  invincible  repugnance.  He  thought 
it  a  measure  of  great  violence  ;  of  doubtful  constitutionality,  and 
certain  to  lead  to  many  hardships  and  much  injustice.  But  deeply 
as  he  felt  these  considerations,  he  felt  that  the  safety  of  the 
state  was  indeed  the  supreme  law.  The  inexorable  necessity 
remained  that  a  currency  should  be  provided  in  which  loans 
could  be  negotiated  and  the  transactions  of  the  Government 
could  be  carried  on.  In  existing  circumstances,  his  scheme  of  a 
national  circulation  issued  through  the  instrumentality  of  bank 
ing  institutions  controlled  by  the  national  authority,  was  imprac 
ticable;  but  he  did  not  despair  of  avoiding  the  legal-tender 
sanction.  He  proposed  several  modes  of  doing  this — the  more 
important  of  which  was,  perhaps,  that  the  banks  should  receive 
and  disburse  the  Government  notes  as  they  did  their  own.  He 
believed  that  such  an  arrangement  would  give  them  as  much 
credit  as  the  legal-tender  sanction  would.  But  the  banks  resisted 
his  wishes.  To  none  of  his  projects  would  they  give  any  thing 
approximating  to  a  unanimous  consent.  Some  manifested  a  dis 
position  wholly  to  discredit  the  national  circulation,1  whether 
issued  in  notes  bearing  interest,  or  issued  in  notes  bearing  no  in 
terest  ;  and  if  possible  to  force  upon  the  country  the  circulation 
of  the  suspended  banks.  "This  state  of  things,"  wrote  Mr. 

1  For  example :  not  long  before  the  passage  of  the  legal-tender  act,  a  distinguished 
bank  president  of  New  York — noted  for  his  hostility  to  the  measures  of  the  Secre 
tary,  and  thoroughly  informed  at  the  same  time  of  the  opposition  of  the  Secretary  to 
the  legal  tender,  and  believing  doubtless  that  he  would  not  consent  to  it — on  a  cer 
tain  occasion  ostentatiously  threw  out  the  demand  notes  in  receiving  deposits,  with 
the  exultant  inquiry,  "  What  will  he  do  now  ?  " 


EMINENT  ADVOCATES  OF  LEGAL  TENDER.  243 

Chase  to  Mr.  Trowbridge,  "  was  the  high-road  to  ruin,  and  I  did 
not  hesitate  as  to  the  remedy.  I  united  with  those  who  desired 
to  make  the  United  States  notes  a  legal  tender,  and  joining  them 
decided  the  success  of  the  measure." 

The  historical  fact  is,  then,  that  Mr.  Chase  did  not  originate 
the  legal-tender  measure,  nor  come  to  its  support  even  until  he 
had  exhausted  all  the  means  at  his  command  to  make  its  adop 
tion  unnecessary.  And  it  was  the  fixed  belief  of  many  leading 
Republican  members  both  of  the  Senate  and  House  that  it  was 
unavoidable ;  and  of  its  potency  in  affording  prompt  relief  no 
one  had  any  doubt.  The  Chambers  of  Commerce  in  New  York 
and  other  leading  cities  officially  indorsed  the  measure.  Mr. 
John  J.  Cisco,  the  Assistant  Treasurer  at  New  York — whose  long 
practical  experience  in  financial  affairs l  made  his  opinions  espe 
cially  valuable  and  important — in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Chase  expressed 
his  belief  in  the  necessity  of  the  measure ;  not  indeed  because  he 
approved  the  principle  it  involved,  but  because  the  public  safety 
was  paramount  to  all  other  considerations.  He  was  urged  to  its 
support  by  eminent  New  York  merchants  and  bankers ;  among 
the  latter  John  Austin  Stevens,  at  that  time  President  of  the 
Bank  of  Commerce.  His  Assistant  Secretary,  Mr,  George  Har 
rington — in  whose  ability  and  judgment  Mr.  Chase  reposed  great 
confidence — was  earnest  in  his  advocacy  of  the  measure.  "  It  is 
impossible  to  get  along  without  it,"  were  his  emphatic  words. 
This  was  said  about  the  20th  of  January,  1862 ;  on  the  29th  Mr. 
Chase  addressed  a  letter  to  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens,  in  which  he 
said: 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  a  resolution  of  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  referring  to  me  House  bill  No.  240,a  and 

1  He  had  served  in  his  office  under  General  Pierce  and  Mr.  Buchanan,  and  con- 
sented  to  a  temporary  service  under  Mr.  Lincoln. 

2  House  Bill  No.  240  was  entitled  "  An  act  to  authorize  the  issue  of  United 
States  notes,  and  for  the  redemption  or  funding  thereof,  and  for  funding  the  floating 
debt  of  the  United  States."     It  was  reported  in  the  House  of  Representatives  by 
Mr.  E.  G.  Spaulding,  of  New  York,  who  said,  in  the  course  of  a  speech  made  in  its 
support,  and  referring  to  the  legal-tender  feature :  "  It  is  a  war  measure ;  a  measure 
of  necessity  and  not  of  choice,  presented  by  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  to 
meet  the  most  pressing  demands  upon  the  Treasury,  to  sustain  the  army  and  the  navy 
until  they  can  make  a  vigorous  advance  upon  the  traitors,  and  crush  out  the  rebel 
lion.     These  are  extraordinary  times,  and  extraordinary  measures  must  be  resorted 


244  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

asking  my  opinion  as  to  the  propriety  and  necessity  of  its  immediate  pas 
sage  by  Congress. 

"  The  condition  of  the  Treasury  certainly  makes  immediate  action  on 
the  subject  of  affording  provision  for  the  expenditures  of  the  Government 
both  expedient  and  necessary.  The  general  provisions  of  the  bill  sub 
mitted  to  me  seem  to  be  well  adapted  to  the  end  proposed.  There  are 
some  points  in  it,  however,  which  may  perhaps  be  usefully  amended. 

"  The  provision  making  the  United  States  notes  a  legal  tender  has 
doubtless  been  well  considered  by  the  committee,  and  their  conclusion 
needs  no  support  from  any  observation  of  mine.  I  think  it  my  duty  to 
say,  however,  that  in  respect  to  this  provision  my  reflections  have  con 
ducted  me  to  the  same  conclusions  they  have  reached.  It  is  not  unknown 
to  them  that  I  have  felt,  nor  do  I  wish  to  conceal  that  I  now  feel,  a  great 
aversion  to  making  any  thing  but  coin  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts. 
It  has  been  my  anxious  wish  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  such  legislation.  It 
is  at  present  impossible,  however,  in  consequence  of  the  large  expendi 
tures  entailed  by  the  war  and  the  suspension  of  the  banks,  to  procure  suf 
ficient  coin  for  current  disbursements  ;  and  it  has  therefore  become  indis 
pensably  necessary  that  we  should  resort  to  the  issue  of  United  States 
notes.  The  making  them  a  legal  tender  might  still  be  avoided  if  the  will 
ingness  manifested  by  the  people  generally,  by  railroad  companies  and  by 
many  of  the  banking  institutions,  to  receive  and  pay  them  as  money  in  all 
transactions  were  absolutely  or  practically  universal;  but  unfortunately 
there  are  some  persons  and  some  institutions  which  refuse  to  receive  and 
pay  them,  and  whose  action  tends  not  merely  to  the  unnecessary  deprecia 
tion  of  the  notes,  but  to  established  discriminations  in  business  against 
those  who — in  this  matter — give  a  cordial  support  to  the  Government  and 
in  favor  of  those  who  do  not.  Such  discriminations  should,  if  possible,  be 

to  in  order  to  save  our  Government  and  preserve  our  nationality."  This  bill,  in  its 
earlier  phases,  had  been  submitted  to  Mr.  Chase  for  his  reading :  he  returned  it  to  Mr. 
Spaulding,  with  some  slight  modifications  suggested  by  the  settled  modes  of  business 
in  the  department,  and  by  considerations  of  economy  and  convenience.  In  his  note 
to  Mr.  Spaulding  on  this  occasion,  he  said  he  "  exceedingly  regretted  that  it  was 
found  necessary  to  resort  to  the  measure  of  making  fundable  notes  of  the  United 
States  a  legal  tender,"  but  that  he  "  heartily  desired  to  cooperate  with  the  commit 
tee  in  all  measures  to  meet  the  existing  necessities  in  the  mode  most  useful  and  least 
hurtful  to  the  general  interests."  Mr.  Spaulding  states,  in  his  "  History  of  the  Legal- 
Tender  Paper  Money  of  the  Rebellion  "  (page  45),  that  this  letter  of  Mr.  Chase  was 
regarded  by  a  majority  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  as  non-committal  on 
the  legal-tender  clause  in  the  bill,  and  many  believed  that  when  pressed  to  a  decision 
he  would  declare  against  its  constitutionality.  In  order  to  obtain  the  opinion  of  the 
Secretary  more  fully,  Mr.  Erastus  Corning  offered  a  resolution  in  the  committee, 
referring  bill  No.  240  to  the  Secretary,  and  requesting  him  to  communicate  at  as 
early  a  day  as  possible  his  opinion  as  to  the  propriety  and  necessity  of  its  imme 
diate  passage.  After  considerable  delay,  the  Secretary  sent  the  reply  quoted  in  the 
text. 


MR.   CHASE'S  LETTERS  ON  THE  SUBJECT.  245 

prevented  ;  and  the  provision  making  the  notes  a  legal  tender  in  a  great 
measure,  at  least,  prevents  it  by  putting  all  citizens  in  this  respect  upon 
the  same  level  both  of  rights  and  duties. 

"  The  committee  doubtless  will  feel  the  necessity  of  accompanying  this 
measure  with  legislation  necessary  to  secure  the  highest  credit  as  well  as 
the  largest  currency  of  these  notes.  This  security  can  be  found,  in  my 
judgment,  by  proper  provisions  for  funding  them  in  interest-bearing 
bonds ;  by  well-guarded  legislation  authorizing  banking  associations  with 
circulation  based  on  the  bonds  in  which  the  notes  are  funded  ;  and  by  a 
judicious  system  of  adequate  taxation,  which  will  not  only  create  a  de 
mand  for  the  notes,  but — by  securing  the  prompt  payment  of  interest — 
raise  and  sustain  the  credit  of  the  bonds.  Such  legislation,  it  may  be 
hoped,  will  divest  the  legal-tender  clause  of  the  bill  of  injurious  tenden 
cies,  and  secure  the  earliest  possible  return  to  a  sound  currency  of  coin  and 
promptly  convertible  notes. 

"  I  beg  leave  to  add  that  vigorous  military  operations,  and  the  unspar 
ing  retrenchment  of  all  unnecessary  expenses,  will  also  contribute  essen 
tially  to  this  desirable  end." 

\  A  few  days  later — on  the  3d  of  February — he  addressed  a 
short  note  to  Mr.  E.  G.  Spaulding,  who,  as  head  of  a  sub-com 
mittee  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  had  the  bill  con 
taining  the  legal-tender  clause  in  charge.  In  that  note  Mr. 
Chase  said : 

"  Mr.  Seward  said  to  me  on  yesterday  that  you  had  observed  to  him 
that  my  hesitation  in  coming  up  to  the  legal-tender  proposition  embar 
rassed  you ;  and  I  am  very  sorry  to  know  it,  for  my  anxious  wish  is  to 
support  you  in  all  respects. 

"  It  is  true  I  came  with  reluctance  to  the  conclusion  that  the  legal-ten 
der  clause  is  a  necessity,  but  I  came  to  it  decidedly  and  I  support  it  ear 
nestly.  I  do  not  hesitate  when  I  have  made  up  my  mind,  however  much 
regret  I  may  feel  over  the  necessity  of  the  conclusion  to  which  I  came.  .  .  . 

"Immediate  action  is  of  great  importance.  The  Treasury  is  nearly 
empty.  I  have  been  obliged  to  draw  for  the  last  installment  of  the  Novem 
ber  loan;  so  soon  as  it  is  paid,  I  fear  the  banks  generally  will  refuse  to 
receive  the  United  States  notes.  You  will  see  the  necessity  of  urging  the 
bill  through  without  more  delay." 

But  although  the  Secretary  at  last  gave  in  his  adhesion,  the 
measure  did  not  command  the  unanimous  support  of  the  friends 
of  the  Administration,  and  was  solidly  opposed-  by  the  Demo 
crats.  It  encountered  a  violent  hostility  and  opposition  in  both 
Houses ;  the  harshest  denunciations  being  showered  upon  it  by 


246  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

leading  Republicans.  Some  of  these  will  now  be  read  with 
interest. 

Mr.  Justin  S.  Merrill,  of  Yermont  (then  in  the  House  of 
Representatives)  :  "  I  should  feel  that  I  utterly  failed  in  the  dis 
charge  of  my  duty,  if  I  did  not  find  a  stronger  prop  for  the 
country  than  this  measure — a  measure  not  blessed  by  one  sound 
precedent,  and  damned  by  all ! "  Then  followed  this  indict 
ment  :  "  It  is  of  doubtful  constitutionality ;  it  is  immoral ;  a 
breach  of  the  public  faith  ;  it  will  banish  all  specie  from  circula 
tion  ;  it  will  degrade  us  in  the  estimation  of  other  nations ;  it 
will  cripple  American  labor,  and  throw  larger  wealth  into  the 
hands  of  the  rich,  and  there  is  no  necessity  calling  for  so  desper 
ate  a  remedy.  ...  I  protest  against  making  any  thing  a  legal 
tender  but  gold  and  silver,  as  calculated  to  undermine  all  confi 
dence  in  the  republic." 

Mr.  Roscoe  Conkling,  of  New  York  (then  also  in  the  House) : 
— "  It  will  proclaim  throughout  the  country  a  saturnalia  of 
fraud ;  a  carnival  of  rogues.  Every  agent,  attorney,  treasurer, 
trustee  ;  every  debtor  of  a  fiduciary  character,  who  has  received 
for  others  money — hard  money,  worth  a  hundred  cents  in  the 
dollar — will  forever  release  himself  from  liability  by  buying 
up,  for  that  knavish  purpose,  at  its  depreciated  value,  the  spuri 
ous  currency  we  will  put  afloat.  Everybody  will  do  it,  except 
those  who  are  more  honest  than  the  American  Congress  advises 
them  to  be !  ...  No  precedent  can  be  urged  in  its  favor ;  no 
suggestion  of  the  existence  of  such  a  power  can  be  found  in  the 
.legislative  history  of  the  country.  .  .  .  But  more  is  claimed  "  (in 
the  pending  measure)  "  than  the  right  to  create  a  legal  tender 
heretofore  unknown.  It  is  not  confined  to  transactions  in  fu- 
turo,  but  is  retroactive  in  its  scope.  It  reaches  back,  and  strikes 
at  every  existing  pecuniary  obligation." 

Mr.  Owen  Lovejoy :  "  No  respectable  argument  has  been 
advanced  in  support  of  its  constitutionality,  and  as  great  talent 
and  eminent  ability  have  been  brought  to  bear  upon  it,  I  take 
it  that  no  argument  can  be  made  in  vindication  of  its  constitu 
tionality.  .  .  .  Moreover,  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  any  legisla 
tive  body  to  make  something  out  of  nothing." 

Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens :  "  The  measure  is  one  of  necessity 
and  not  of  choice.  No  one  would  willingly  issue  paper  currency 


OPINIONS  OF  SENATORS.  247 

not  redeemable  on  demand  and  make  it  a  legal  tender.  It  is 
never  desirable  to  depart  from  the  circulating  medium  which,  by 
the  common  consent  of  civilized  nations,  forms  the  standard  of 
value." 

Mr.  Fessenden,  in  the  Senate :  "  It  is,  in  my  judgment,  a 
confession  of  bankruptcy.  "We  go  out  to  the  country  with  a 
declaration  that  we  are  unable  to  pay  or  borrow,  and  such  a  con 
fession  is  not  calculated  to  increase  our  credit.  Nobody  can  deny 
that  it  is  bad  faith.  If  it  be  necessary  for  the  salvation  of  the 
Government,  all  considerations  of  the  kind  must  yield ;  but  to 
make  the.  best  of  it,  it  is  bad  faith,  and  encourages  bad  morality 
both  public  and  private.  To  say  that  notes  thus  issued  shall  be 
receivable  in  payment  of  all  private  obligations  is,  in  its  very 
essence,  a  wrong,  for  it  compels  one  man  to  take  from  his  neigh 
bor  in  payment  of  a  debt  that  which  he  would  not  otherwise  re 
ceive  or  be  obliged  to  receive,  and  what  is  not  probably  full  pay 
ment."  He  declared  that  it  inflicted  a  stain  upon  the  national 
honor,  and  would  Occasion  loss  that  would  fall  most  heavily  on 
the  poor.  t 

Mr.  Sumner,  in  the  Senate :  "  Is  it  necessary  to  incur  all  the 
unquestionable  evils  of  inconvertible  paper,  forced  into  circula 
tion  by  act  of  Congress — to  suffer  the  stain  upon  our  national 
faith — to  bear  the  stigma  of  a  seeming  repudiation — to  lose  for 
the  present  that  credit  which  is  in  itself  a  treasury — and  to  teach 
debtors  everywhere  that  contracts  may  be  varied  at  the  will  of 
the  stronger  ?  Surely,  there  is  much  in  these  inquiries  that  may 
make  us  pause.  If  our  country  were  poor  or  feeble,  without 
population  and  without  resources ;  if  it  were  already  drained  by 
a  long  war;  if  the  enemy  had  succeeded  in  depriving  us  of 
the  means  of  li velihood — then  we  should  not  even  pause.  But 
our  country  is  rich  and  powerful,  with  a  great  population,  busy, 
honest,  and  determined ;  and  with  unparalleled  resources  of  all 
kinds,  agricultural,  mineral,  industrial,  and  commercial :  it  is 
yet  undrained  by  the  war  in  which  we  are  engaged ;  nor  has  the 
enemy  succeeded  in  depriving  us  of  any  of  the  means  of  liveli 
hood.  It  is  hard,  very  hard,  to  think  that  such  a  country,  so 
powerful,  so  rich,  and  so  beloved,  should  be  compelled  to  adopt 
a  policy  of  even  questionable  propriety.  If  I  mention  these 
things — if  I  make  these  inquiries — it  is  because  of  the  unfeigned 


248  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

solicitude  I  feel  with  regard  to  this  measure,  and  not  with  the 
view  of  arguing  against  the  exercise  of  a  constitutional  power, 
when,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Government,  in  which  I  place  trust, 
the  necessity  for  its  exercise  has  arrived.  Surely,  we  must  all  be 
against  paper  money — we  must  all  insist  upon  maintaining  the 
integrity  of  the  Government — and  we  must  all  set  our  faces 
against  any  proposition  like  the  present,  except  as  a  'temporary 
expedient,  rendered  imperative  by  the  exigency  of  the  hour.  If 
I  vote  for  this  proposition,  it  will  be  because  I  am  unwilling  to 
refuse  to  the  Government,  especially  charged  with  this  respon 
sibility,  that  confidence  which  is  hardly  less  important  to  the 
public  interests  than  the  money  itself." 

That  feature  in  the  bill  excepting  the  interest  on  the  public 
debt  and  duties  on  imports 1  from  the  operation  of  the  legal  ten 
der,  and  making  them  payable  in  coin,  was  condemned  as  an 
unjust  and  odious  discrimination.  Mr.  Stevens  directed  his 
strong  invective  against  it.  He  said  that  with  this  provision  in 
corporated  (originated  in  the  Senate)  the  measure  had  "  all  the 
bad  qualities  originally  charged  upon  it  fyy  its  enemies,  and  none 
of  its  benefits.  It  creates  money,  and  by  its  very  terms  declares 
it  depreciated.  It  makes  two  classes  of  money — one  for  the 
banks  and  brokers,  and  another  for  the  people.  It  discriminates 
between  the  rights  of  different  classes  of  creditors,  allowing  the 
capitalist  to  demand  gold,  and  compelling  the  ordinary  lender  on 
individual  security  to  receive  notes  which  the  Government  itself 
has  purposely  discredited."  Mr.  Hooper  also  opposed  this  feat 
ure,  but  it  prevailed — chiefly  upon  the  ground  that  the  credit  of 
the  notes  would  be  better  sustained  if  they  were  made  convertible 
into  coin  interest-bearing  securities.  But  Mr.  Stevens,  feeling 
deeply  the  injustice  of  the  discrimination,  made  an  effort  to  have 
the  wages  of  the  army  and  navy,  and  contractors  for  supplies 
furnished  for  their  support,  paid  in  coin ;  nor  was  he  far  from 
success — sixty-seven  votes  being  recorded  in  its  favor  to  seventy- 
two  against  it. 

The  bill  became  a  law  on  the  25th  of  February,  1862.  It 
authorized  the  issue  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  United 

1  Duties  on  imports  were  made  payable  in  coin,  and  the  coin  so  derived  into  the 
Treasury  was  to  be  reserved  by  the  Secretary  as  a  special  fund  for  the  payment  of 
interest  on  the  public  debt. 


PROVISIONS  OF  THE  LEGAL-TENDER  ACT.  249 

States  notes  not  bearing  interest,  payable  at  the  Treasury  of  the 
United  States,  in  denominations  of  not  less  than  five  dollars ; 
fifty  millions  to  be  in  lieu  of  fifty  millions  of  demand  notes  au 
thorized  in  July,  1861,  which  were  to  be  taken  up  and  retired  as 
rapidly  as  practicable  (and  ten  millions  of  "  demand  notes,"  also 1 
issued  under  authority  of  an  act  approved  February  12,  1862, 
passed  while  the  legal-tender  measure  was  under  discussion,  were 
also  to  be  retired  and  legal  tenders  substituted  in  their  stead) ; 
the  two  kinds  of  notes,  taken  together,  were  not  to  exceed  one 
hundred  and  fifty  millions ;  they  were  to  be  received  in  payment 
of  all  taxes,  internal  duties,  excises,  debts  and  demands  of  every 
kind  due  to  the  United  States,  EXCEPT  duties  on  imports,  which 
were  to  be  paid  in  coin,  and  of  all  claims  and  demands  against 
the  United  States  of  every  kind  whatsoever,  EXCEPT  for  interest 
upon  the  public  debt,  which  was  to  be  paid  in  coin ;  and  they 
were  to  be  LAWFUL  MONET  AND  A  LEGAL  TENDER  IN  PAYMENT  OF 
ALL  DEBTS,  PUBLIC  AND  PRIVATE,  within  the  United  States,  EXCEPT 
duties  on  imports  and  interest  on  the  public  debt,3  and  they  were 
to  be  received  at  par  in  exchange  for  the  six  per  cent.  "  five- 
twenty  bonds,"  or  any  other  loans  subsequently  sold  or  nego 
tiated  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

Although  there  was  no  pledge  to  that  effect  in  the  act,  the 
whole  course  of  the  debate  upon  it  implied  a  general  understand 
ing,  at  any  rate,  that  the  amount  of  the  legal  tenders  should  not 
at  any  time  exceed  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dollars. 

But  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  were  not  enough.  On 
the  Yth  of  June  subsequent  to  the  passage  of  this  act  Mr.  Chase 

1  On  the  17th  of  March,  1862,  the  President  approved  an  act  by  which  the  "de 
mand  notes "  were  also  made  a  legal  tender ;  the  reason  for  the  act  being  that 
although  the  "  demand  notes "  were  received  for  duties  on  imposts,  and  ought  to 
have  been  at  par  with  coin,  some  of  the  banks  refused  to  receive  them,  and  they 
were  slightly  depreciated  in  consequence. 

a  During  the  suspension  of  cash  payments  by  the  Bank  of  England,  the  imperial 
Treasury  received  the  notes  of  the  bank  in  payment  of  every  kind  of  dues,  and  paid 
them  out  for  interest  upon  the  public  debt.  This  latter,  of  course,  affected 
many  persons,  and  was  not  exactly  honest ;  but  doubtless  it  was  better  and  fairer 
than  to  make  a  legal  discrimination  among  public  creditors!  It  ought  to  be  ob 
served,  too,  that  the  depreciation  of  Bank  of  England  notes,  even  after  it  began, 
was  very  slight  and  gradual,  and  worked  no  extreme  hardships ;  and  it  has  been 
stated  that  for  a  short  period  after  the  suspension  they  were  actually  at  a  slight  pre 
mium  over  coin. 


250  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

applied  to  Congress  for  authority  to  issue  one  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  more,  and  of  this  sum  thirty-five  millions  were  to  be  in 
denominations  less  than  five  dollars.1  Great  inconvenience,  he 

• 

1  In  his  letter  of  June  7,  1862,  to  Mr.  Stevens,  chairman  of  the  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means,  Mr.  Chase  proposed  to  make  arrangements  for  engraving  and 
printing  the  legal-tender  notes  in  the  Treasury  Department  building  at  Washington. 
Congress  (act  of  July  11,  1862)  authorized  him  to  do  so.  The  organization  of  the 
"  Currency  Bureau  "  was  prompt ;  a  suitable  system  of  "  checks  and  balances  "  was 
provided  for  the  public  protection,  and  from  its  first  beginning  in  1862,  with  one  male 
and  four  female  operatives,  it  attained  in  1864 — about  the  time  of  Mr.  Secretary  Chase's 
resignation — a  capacity  for  the  production  of  notes  and  bonds  to  the  amount  of  six 
teen  millions  of  dollars  a  day ! — which  sum  it  sometimes  exceeded,  and  employed 
over  five  hundred  operatives.  This  bureau  was  the  subject  of  a  vast  deal  of  gossip 
and  scandal ;  its  chief  was  charged  with  flagrant  abuse  of  his  place  with  respect  to 
some  of  the  women,  which  may  or  may  not  have  been  true ;  and  with  fraud  and 
peculation,  which  certainly  was  not  true.  There  was  no  lack  of  committees  ap 
pointed  both  by  Congress  and  the  Secretary  himself,  to  investigate  its  affairs ;  these 
committees  were  laborious  and  thorough  in  their  inquiries ;  most  of  their  members 
were  either  political  enemies  of  the  Secretary  or  personal  enemies  of  the  chief  of  the 
bureau ;  but  they  developed  nothing  showing  dishonest  or  even  careless  manage 
ment.  It  was  in  connection  with  the  manufacture  of  paper  money  that  the  employ 
ment  of  women  in  the  Treasury  Department  became  a  settled  policy.  The  notes 
came  from  the  bank-note  companies  in  sheets,  and  at  the  beginning  the  business  of 
the  women  was  to  trim  them  for  circulation.  This  was  afterward  done  by  machinery ; 
many  of  the  women  were  then  transferred  to  the  performance  of  clerical  duties,  and 
others  were  appointed  in  pursuance  of  law. 

As  already  said,  this  Currency  Bureau  was  the  subject  of  a  great  deal  of  official 
investigation.  Indeed,  it  was  so  rarely  free  from  some  sort  of  exploration,  at  the 
direction  either  of  Congress  or  the  Secretary,  that  the  head  of  the  bureau  was  in  the 
habit  of  saying  that  he  was  unhappy  when  a  committee  was  not  "  sitting  upon  him." 
In  the  course  of  an  investigation  ordered  by  Congress,  Mr.  James  Brooks,  of  New 
York — a  Democratic  member  of  the  radical  order — exercised  an  especially  severe 
scrutiny.  He  felt  sure  that  there  must  be  numerous  opportunities  for  the  abstraction 
of  bonds  and  currency  in  the  printing  division  by  its  employes,  and  directed  his  ex 
amination  to  their  development.  The  system  of  "  checks  and  balances  "  was,  how 
ever,  as  nearly  perfect  as  human  ingenuity  could  make  it ;  and  the  head  of  the 
bureau  gave  Mr.  Brooks  a  surprising  instance  of  this.  He  asked  Mr.  Brooks  for 
a  one-dollar  greenback ;  saying  he  would  trace  that  particular  dollar  from  the  time 
it  was  part  of  a  sheet  of  clean  white  paper  in  the  "  paper-room  "  to  the  hour  of  its 
delivery  into  the  custody  of  another  bureau  of  the  Treasury  Department.  He  did 
this,  showing  the  course  of  the  bill  through  the  several  rooms  in  which  it  was  sub 
jected  to  one  operation  of  printing  or  another,  and  the  several  hands  operating  upon 
it  until  it  at  last  emerged  a  completed  piece  of  money.  It  was  unmistakably  true 
that  the  particular  bill  traced  was  the  particular  bill  supplied  for  that  purpose. 
Another  instance,  showing  the  excellence  of  the  system,  was  this :  One  evening  a  sheet 
or  two  of  fractional  currency  were  missing ;  and  this,  too,  before  a  single  employe  of 
the  printing  division  had  departed  for  home  after  the  day's  work  was  done.  Indeed, 


AN  ADDITIONAL  ISSUE  ASKED.  251 

said,  had  arisen  from  the  want  of  notes  of  the  smaller  denomina 
tions,  it  having  been  found  impracticable — notwithstanding  the 
efforts  of  the  Treasury — to  procure  a  supply  sufficient  to  answer 
necessary  demands.  The  Secretary  thought  the  Government 
might  authenticate,  by  device  and  imprint,  small  notes  as  well  as 
small  coins ;  and  that  a  resumption  of  cash  payments  could  be 
more  safely  and  easily  effected  if  the  whole  currency,  large  and 
small,  was  in  United  States  notes.  He  said  that  while  the  ex 
penses  of  the  Government  were  not  less  than  a  million  a  day,  the 
receipts  from  customs  were  only  about  §230,000,  and  the  conver 
sions  of  legal  tenders  into  six  per  cent,  five-twenty  bonds  did  not 
exceed  $150,000.  "  The  condition  of  the  Treasury,"  said  Mr. 
Chase  in  submitting  a  bill  in  accordance  with  these  views  of  the 
existing  necessities,  "renders  prompt  action  highly  desirable; 
and  I  trust  it  is  not  necessary  to  assure  Congress  that  should  the 
powers  asked  for  be  granted,  they  will  be  exercised  only  with  the 
most  careful  reference  to  the  requirements  of  the  public  inter 
ests." 

The  amount  of  legal  tenders  in  circulation  at  this  time  was 
§147,000,000,  being  within  three  millions  of  the  whole  amount 
authorized  by  the  former  act. 

The  popularity  of  the  former  issue  was  by  this  time  general, 
and  the  wishes  of  the  Secretary  were  promptly  met.  Moreover, 
Congress  was  willing  to  increase  the  supply  of  notes,  since  that 
mode  of  supporting  the  war  averted,  or  seemed  to  avert,  a  neces- 

it  was  a  special  feature  of  the  system  that  no  employe"  was  dismissed  until  every 
scrap  of  paper  in  the  division  had  been  strictly  accounted  for ;  a  proceeding  which, 
though  apparently  complicated,  required  but  a  few  moments  for  determination.  On 
the  occasion  here  referred  to,  the  doors  remained  locked  and  no  one  was  permitted 
to  depart  until  the  matter  had  been  sifted  and  the  culprit  discovered.  This  was  the 
work  of  a  few  minutes ;  and  an  examination  of  the  books  pointed  unerringly  to  the 
guilty  person — a  young  woman  of  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  of  age.  Of  course  she 
vigorously  denied  the  charge  against  her ;  but  an  examination  of  her  person,  made 
by  two  or  three  elderly  women  belonging  to  the  bureau,  vindicated  the  accuracy  of 
the  system :  the  missing  sheets  were  found  concealed  in  the  girl's  clothing.  The 
sum  she  sought  to  steal  was  small — twenty  or  thirty  dollars,  perhaps,  and  it  was  not 
thought  worth  while  to  prosecute  her,  though  she  was  of  course  dismissed.  But  her 
prompt  and  certain  discovery — the  whole  affair  did  not  occupy  twenty  minutes — 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  system  itself,  shows  how  complete  it  was  and  is. 
I  am  not  aware  that  any  similar  instance  occurred  of  an  attempt  by  an  employe1  of 
the  bureau  to  steal ;  which  would  be  more  honorable  to  human  nature  if  it  were  not 
in  part  due  to  precautions  which  make  stealing  impossible  I 


252  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

sity  for  immediate  severe  taxation  ;  and  taxation  is  scarcely  ever 
popular,  even  with  the  most  patriotic.  So  an  additional  issue  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  was  authorized,  thirty-five  mill 
ions  to  be  in  denominations  of  less  than  five  dollars.  This  act 
was  approved  by  the  President  July  11,  1862. 

In  the  absence  of  other  methods  for  the  support  of  the  armies 
and  the  navy,  and  in  the  presence  of  constantly-increasing  ex 
penditures  and  greater  facilities  for  the  production  of  paper 
money — joined  with  its  growing  popularity — the  limit  of  the 
legal-tender  issues  was  not  probable  to  be  long  preserved  at  even 
three  hundred  millions.  The  Secretary  was  compelled  to  make 
prompt  use  of  all  the  authority  conferred  upon  him,  and  rapidly 
exhausted  it.  The  system  worked  so  efficiently,  indeed,  that 
before  the  end  of  the  war,  Congress  had  authorized  the  appli 
cation  of  the  legal-tender  sanction  to  one  form  or  another  of 
Government  obligations  to  a  total  amount  of  TWELVE  HUNDRED 
AND  FIFTY  MILLIONS  OF  DOLLARS  !  These  several  f orms  of  legal- 
tender  obligations  may  be  thus  summarized : 

1.  The  legal-tender  United  States  notes,  commonly  called 
"  the  greenbacks,"  four  hundred  and  fifty  millions  :  authorized 
by  the  acts  of  February  25  and  July  11,  1862,  and  March  3, 
1863.     Of  the  issues  thus  authorized,  however,  sixty  millions 
were  to  be  in  lieu  of  the  "  demand-notes,"  and  fifty  millions 
were  to  be  held  as  a  reserve  for  the  reimbursement  of  the  tem 
porary  loan  beyond  other  convenient  means  of   satisfaction. 
The  Secretary  was  directed  to  retire  the  demand-notes  as  rapidly 
as  practicable. 

2.  Treasury  notes  payable  not  more  than  three  years  from 
date,  bearing  interest  in  currency  at  a  rate  not  exceeding  six  per 
cent,  (principal  payable  in  currency  also),  four  hundred  millions. 
Act  of  March  3, 1863. 

3.  Treasury  notes  redeemable  after  three  years,  bearing  a 
currency  interest  not  exceeding  seven  and  three-tenths  per  cent, 
per  annum,  four  hundred  millions.     Acts  of  March  3  and  June 
30,  1864. 

How  far  these  several  acts  were  availed  of  by  Mr.  Chase,  the 
following  brief  statement  will  show : 

The  whole  legal  tenders  outstanding  on  the  30th  of  June, 
1862,  were  $149,660,000 ;  of  which  $53,040,000  were  demand- 


WAR  EXPERIENCE  OF  LEGAL  TENDER.  253 

notes.  The  total  of  the  public  debt  at  the  same  date  was 
$514,211,371.92. 

The  whole  outstanding  legal  tenders  on  the  30th  of  June, 
1863,  were  $390,997,608 ;  of  which  $3,351,019  were  demand- 
notes  ;  and  the  public  debt  was  $1,222,113,559.86. 

The  legal  tenders  outstanding  June  30,  1864,  amounted  to  a 
total  of  $600,431,119  ;  of  which  $780,990  were  demand-notes ; 
$431,178,670  were  legal-tender  notes  proper ;  $15,000,000  were 
three-years  six  per  cent,  compound  (currency)  interest-bearing 
notes ;  $44,520,000  were  one-year  five  per  cent,  (currency)  notes ; 
and  $108,951,450  were  two-years  five  per  cent,  (currency)  notes. 
The  public  debt  was  $1,740,690,489.49.1 

The  war  experience  seems  to  justify  the  conclusion  that  the 
legal  tender  was  a  measure  warranted  by  political  and  military 
necessity,  and  that  there  was  no  other  means  of  escape  from  the 
financial  embarrassments  existing  at  the  time  of  its  adoption. 
Without  it  the  circulating  notes  of  the  Government  would  have 
been  of  no  more  value  than  the  notes  of  the  suspended  banks ; 
possibly  they  might  have  been  of  less  value ;  but  with  it,  they 
were  clothed  with  a  power  which  at  once  gave  them  a  marked 
superiority.  Many  of  the  banks  would  have  rejected  them — 
not  always  from  want  of  patriotism,  but  from  motives  of  self- 
interest  ;  and  they  would  have  been  refused  by  a  considerable 
class  of  citizens  who,  hostile  to  the  war,  would  not  have  hesitated 
to  clog  its  management  in  every  way  not  actually  treasonable. 
Both  these  probabilities  are  attested  by  facts  connected  with  the 
issue  of  the  "  demand-notes."  The  difficulty  disappeared  under 
the  operation  of  the  legal  tender.  It  enabled  the  Government 
at  once  to  relieve  itself  of  embarrassment.  It  secured  prompt 
and  ample  supplies  for  both  army  and  navy.  It  relieved  and 
invigorated  the  industries  of  the  people.  It  restored  confidence, 
by  furnishing  a  substitute  for  money,  which  for  the  time,  at  any 

1  Mr.  Fessenden  stated  that  on  the  30th  of  June,  1865,  the  outstanding  legal 
tenders  amounted  to  $669,255,395  ;  of  which  $472,60£  were  demand-notes ;  $432,- 
687,966  legal  tenders  proper  ;  $42,338,710  were  one  and  two-years  currency  fives  ; 
$15,000,000  were  three-years  currency  sixes ;  $178,756,080  were  three-years  com 
pound  sixes.  The  public  debt  was  $2,682,593,026.53. 

On  the  31st  of  October,  1868,  Secretary  McCulloch  stated  the  public  debt  at 
$2,808,549,437.55.  The  United  States  notes  amounted  to  $428,160,569,  and  tho 
interest-bearing  legal  tenders  to  $173,012,141. 


254  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

rate,  perfectly  performed  all  the  functions  of  money.  Though 
it  depreciated  when  the  issues  became  excessive,  the  depreciation 
was  too  slow  seriously  to  injure  creditors  generally.  The  in 
creased  business  activity  produced  by  the  vast  consumption 
of  the  Government,  compensated  for  such  losses.  It  did  not 
bear  with  extreme  hardship  upon  salaried  persons,  because  in 
the  main  salaries  were  advanced  pari  passu  with  the  depreci 
ation.  But  it  did  bear  with  great  severity  upon  those  whose 
income  was  derived  from  unchangeable  annuities,  and  large 
classes  of  laborers  suffered  because  daily  wages  did  not  keep 
pace  with  the  depreciation.  But  this  was  somewhat  compen 
sated  by  the  increased  steadiness  of  labor,  and  the  sense  of 
suffering  was  in  a  measure  lost  in  the  excitement  furnished  by 
the  war. 

Excessive  issues  increased  the  public  debt  more  rapidly  than 
if  it  had  been  possible  to  conduct  the  war  upon  a  coin  basis, 
which  was  not  possible.  In  the  midst  of  unlimited  supplies  of 
"greenbacks,"  indifference  to  expenditure  was  altogether  too 
marked  a  characteristic  of  the  war  administration.  On  the  other 
hand,  however,  these  extensive  issues  enabled  the  Government 
to  "  float "  its  bonds  successfully,  and  kept  the  aggregate  of  the 
debt  far  below  what  it  would  have  been  if  the  Government  had 
used  the  notes  of  the  banks.  But  they  had  this  miserably  bad 
effect :  they  bred  extravagance  and  corruption  among  all  ranks 
and  classes  of  people,  and  in  both  the  military  and  civil  service.1 

1  "Upon  an  average  our  army,  on  a  peace  footing,  has  cost  us  $1,000  annually 
per  man — rank  and  file.  In  the  war  in  which  we  are  now  engaged  we  present  the 
extraordinary  spectacle  of  an  army  hardly  ever  before  equaled  in  numbers,  hired  at 
the  rate  of  wages  paid  to  able-bodied  men  in  the  various  peaceful  avocations  from 
which  they  were  drawn.  To  the  men  in  the  ranks  $13  a  month  is  paid,  with  their  food 
and  clothing.  The  soldier  in  the  French  army  receives  only  about  56  cents  a 
month ;  the  pay  of  our  soldiers  being  twenty  times  greater.  The  estimate  in  the 
French  budget  for  1860  was  345,908,744  francs,  or  $64,687,500,  for  an  army  on  a 
war  footing  of  762,765  men,  and  in  addition  a  reserve  militia  on  a  peace  footing  of 
415,746  men.  We  all  know  the  maintenance  of  such  an  army  has  created  serious 
embarrassments  in  the  finances  of  the  empire.  They  have,  if  we  may  credit  foreign 
journals,  completely  changed  the  policy  of  the  emperor.  It  costs  this  country 
twelve  times  as  much  to  maintain  a  soldier  in  the  field  as  it  does  the  French  Govern 
ment.  Our  forces  now  under  arms  are,  consequently,  equivalent  to  7,500,000  men 
for  that  country.  It  costs  us  two  and  a  half  times  as  much  to  maintain  a  soldier  as 
it  does  the  English  Government.  We  hire  our  money  at  twice  the  rate  of  interest. 
Our  expenditures  per  man,  measured  by  the  standard  of  interest  paid,  are  on  a  scale 


FLUCTUATIONS  IN  THE  PRICE  OF  GOLD.  255 

The  advance  in  prices  which  happened  during  the  war  is  to 
be  attributed  not  wholly  to  the  inflation  of  the  currency  ;  it  was 
due  partly  to  the  fact  that  the  Government  was  a  vast  consumer, 
and  that  in  the  supplies  furnished  it  was  counted  by  most  con 
tractors  legitimate  to  cheat  the  public  not  only  in  quality  of 
goods  but  in  the  extortion  of  prices  no  private  purchaser  would 
pay.  If  all  the  corruption  of  this  character  could  be  uncovered, 
it  would  be  appalling.  But,  after  all,  there  is  a  very  definite 
sense  in  which  the  inflation  was  the  primary  as  well  as  the 
ultimate  cause  of  the  corruption  and  the  increase  in  prices ;  it 
furnished  the  means  for  both. 

The  depreciation  of  the  Government  notes  was  not  fairly 
marked  by  the  premiums  paid  for  coin.  The  fluctuations  in  the 
price  of  gold  were  certainly  extraordinary,  and  no  adequate 
cause  has  been  assigned  to  account  for  them.  But  they  were, 
doubtless,  in  part  due  to  military  disasters,  in  part  to  mere  spirit 
of  speculation,  and  in  part  to  the  arts  and  efforts  of  public  ene 
mies  operating  in  the  gold-market.  The  state  of  the  currency, 
however,  did  not  account  for  them  all.  Thus,  on  the  13th  of 
January,  1862,  the  premium  in  New  York  was  3  per  cent. ;  it 
rose  to  4f  on  the  13th  of  February,  and  fell  to  1J-  on  the  13th 
of  March ;  then  rose  again,  till  on  the  13th  of  June  it  was  5  J 
per  cent. ;  on  the  15th  of  July  it  was  17 ;  on  the  15th  of  Octo- 
bes  it  was  32£,  and  closed  on  the  31st  of  December  at  34. 
February  25,  1863,  it  had  advanced  to  T2£ ;  but  on  the  26th  of 
March,  there  being  favorable  news  from  the  Southwest,  it  fell  to 
40  J  ;  on  the  2d  of  April  it  rose  again  to  58 ;  a  few  days  later, 
upon  receiving  report  of  the  iron-clad  attack  upon  Fort  Sumter, 
it  fell  to  46,  and  after  the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  the  surrender 
of  Yicksburg,  and  at  the  news  of  the  surrender  of  Port  Hud 
son,  to  23£.  This  was  in  July.  On  the  16th  of  October  it  rose 
to  56f,  and  went  no  higher  during  the  year.  On  the  2d  of 
January,  1864,  it  opened  at  52  ;  it  went  up  to  88  on  the  14th  of 
April,  and  fell  to  6T  on  the  29th.  June  22d,  the  date  of  the 

more  than  four  times  greater  than  for  that  country.  England  can  expend  $1,200,- 
000,000  a  year  without  creating  a  greater  burden  in  the  shape  of  a  public  debt  than 
$600,000,000  would  be  for  the  United  States."— (From  a  "  Report  of  the  American 
Geographical  and  Statistical  Society,"  January,  1862,  cited  by  Roscoe  Conkling,  in 
the  House  of  Representatives,  February  4,  1862.) 


256  LITE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

passage  of  the  gold  bill,  it  rose  to  130,  and  fell  next  day  to  115. 
On  the  1st  of  July,  the  day  upon  which  the  resignation  of  Mr. 
Chase  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  was  announced  to  the  public, 
it  went  up  to  185 ;  on  the  2d  of  July  it  receded  to  130,  and  on 
the  6th  the  gold  bill  was  repealed.  On  the  llth  of  July  it 
advanced  again  to  184 ;  on  the  15th  it  fell  to  144,  and  after 
various  fluctuations  fell  on  the  26th  of  September  to  87 — thus 
rising,  between  the  1st  of  January  and  the  1st  of  July,  1864, 
from  52  to  185 ;  and  falling,  between  the  1st  of  July  and  the 
26th  of  September,  from  185  to  87.  None  of  these  fluctuations 
were  brought  about  by  an  increase  or  decrease  of  the  currency ; 
on  the  contrary,  gold  rose  most  rapidly  when  there  was  no 
considerable  increase  of  the  currency,  and  fell  in  the  face  of 
large  additions  to  it.1  It  is  noticeable  also,  that  the  prices  of 
commodities  did  not  fluctuate  either  so  rapidly  or  extensively  as 
gold ;  and  moreover,  gold,  relatively  to  prices  before  the  war, 
had  also  suffered  a  serious  depreciation. 

The  question  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  legal  tender 
should  be  kept  steadily  distinct  from  that  of  its  necessity,  even 
if,  in  a  period  of  war,  it  be  conceded  that  the  necessity  for  its 
use  was  overwhelming  and  unavoidable.  The  framers  of  the 
Constitution  do  not  seem  to  have  provided,  in  the  supreme  law, 
for  a  condition  of  civil  war,  and  that  they  intended  to  prohibit 
legal-tender  paper  seems  clear  upon  a  fair  interpretation  of  the 
discussion  in  the  Federal  Convention  in  relation  to  the  subject, 
when  considered,  especially,  with  reference  to  the  history  of  le 
gal-tender  paper  in  the  War  of  the  Revolution.  The  most  and 
the  least  that  can  be  said  of  the  matter  may  be  expressed  in  the 
words  of  the  sagacious  De  Maistre,  who,  in  his  work  on  "  The 
Generative  Principle  of  Political  Constitutions,"  has  said :  "  That 
whick  is  most  constitutional  is  precisely  that  which  cannot  be 
written." 


NOTE  TO   CHAPTER  XXVII. 

IT  has  sometimes  been  alleged  that  the  act  of  the  British  Parliament 
(of  1797),  authorizing  the  suspension  of  cash  payments  by  the  Bank  of 
England,  was  substantially  a  legal-tender  act.  During  the  debate  upon  the 

1  See  "  Report  of  Comptroller  of  the  Currency,"  1864. 


NOTE  TO  CHAPTER  XXVII.  257 

bill  Mr.  Pitt  explicitly  denied  that  it  made  the  bank-notes  a  legal  tender. 
So  far  as  concerned  transactions  between  individuals,  Mr.  Pitt's  denial  was 
strictly  true ;  but  they  were  a  legal  tender  on  the  part  of  the  bank.  The 
real  effect  of  the  act  was  to  protect  debtors  from  arrest  after  tender  of 
bank-notes ;  though  the  creditor  could  recover  cash  by  the  ordinary  course 
of  law,  even  after  such  tender  had  been  made.  But  British  public  opinion 
was  so  strongly  in  favor  of  the  measure  of  bank  suspension  that  but  little 
resort  was  had  to  the  courts  for  payment  in  cash,  and  Lord  Chief-Justice 
Alvanley  thanked  God  that  few  plaintiffs  of  such  a  character  were  to  be 
found  in  England !  "  If  it  had  been  proposed,"  however,  said  the  eminent 
Mr.  Huskisson,  M.  P.,  and  of  Pitt's  administration,  in  a  pamphlet  pub 
lished  about  1810,  "  at  once  to  make  bank-notes  a  legal  tender,  and  in 
direct  terms  to  enact  that  every  man  should  be  obliged  thenceforward  to 
receive  them  as  equivalent  to  the  gold-coin  of  the  realm,  such  a  propo 
sition  would  have  excited  universal  alarm." 

17 


CHAPTEE    XXYIII. 

ACTION   OF    THE    SUPREME    COURT  OF    THE  UNITED   STATES    ON   THE 

LEGAL  TENDER — THE  CASE  OF  HEPBURN  AGAINST  GRISWOLD 

WHAT  THE  COURT  AFFIRMED  IN  THAT  CASE — RESIGNATION  OF 
JUSTICE  GRIER — RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  COURT APPOINT 
MENT  OF  JUSTICES  STRONG  AND  BRADLEY PROMPT  ATTEMPT 

TO     REVERSE     HEPBURN    AGAINST     GRISWOLD CIRCUMSTANCES 

ATTENDING  THAT  ATTEMPT THE  REVERSAL  ITSELF  UNPRECE 
DENTED  AND  REVOLUTIONARY — HISTORY  OF  THE  RECONSTRUC 
TION  OF  THE  COURT — MR.  CHASE  ON  HIS  OWN  ACTION  IN 
HEPBURN  AGAINST  GRISWOLD. 

HERE  follows  an  account  of  the  action  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  *  upon  the  legal  tender  ;  proba 
bly  the  most  remarkable  chapter  in  the  history  of  that  tribunal : 

Mr.  Justice  Miller,  in  the  dissenting  opinion  in  the  now  cele 
brated  case  of  Hepburn  against  Griswold,  stated  that  the  courts 
of  fifteen  States  had  affirmed  the  constitutionality  of  the  legal- 
tender  act,  and  that  but  one  had  denied  it ;  this  latter  was  the 
Court  of  Appeals  of  the  State  of  Kentucky.  It  is  to  be  ob 
served,  however,  with  respect  to  this  statement  of  Justice  Mil 
ler,  that  where  the  members  of  the  State  courts  were  of  opposing 
politics,  the  opinions  on  the  subject  were  divided. 

The  facts  in  the  case  of  Hepburn  against  Griswold  are 
briefly  these : a  On  the  20th  of  June,  1860,  a  certain  Mrs.  Hep 
burn  made  a  promissory  note  by  the  terms  of  which  she  was  to 

1  This  chapter  is  not  strictly  in  its  chronological  order ;  but  its  peculiar  connec 
tion  with  the  preceding  chapter  makes  it  proper  that  it  should  be  inserted  here. 
9  8  Wallace,  604,  et  seq. 


CASE  OF  HEPBURN  VS.   GRISWOLD.  259 

pay  to  Henry  Griswold  on  the  20th  of  February,  1862,  eleven 
thousand  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  At  the  time  the  note 
was  made,  as  well  as  at  the  time  it  fell  due,  there  certainly  was 
no  lawful  money  of  the  United  States  which  was  a  legal  tender 
in  payment  of  private  debts  but  gold  and  silver  coin.  Five  days 
after  the  note  became  due — that  is  to  say,  on  the  25th  of  Febru 
ary,  1862 — the  legal-tender  act  was  approved  by  the  President. 
Mrs.  Hepburn's  note  not  being  paid  at  maturity,  interest  accrued 
upon  it.  In  March,  1864,  suit  having  meantime  been  brought 
on  the  note  in  the  Louisville  Chancery  Court,  she  tendered 
$12,720  in  United  States  legal-tender  notes,  being  the  amount 
of  principal  and  interest  and  costs  to  the  date  of  the  tender,  in 
satisfaction  of  Griswold' s  claim.  The  tender  was  refused.  The 
notes  were  then  tendered  and  paid  into  court ;  the  Chancellor, 
"  resolving  all  doubts  in  favor  of  the  act  of  Congress,"  declared 
the  tender  good  and  adjudged  the  debt,  interest  and  costs,  to  be 
satisfied  accordingly.  Griswold,  however,  was  not  satisfied,  and 
appealed  the  matter  to  the  Court  of  Errors  of  Kentucky,  where 
the  Chancellor's  judgment  was  reversed  and  the  case  remanded 
with  instructions  accordingly.  Mrs.  Hepburn  then  carried  it  to 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

It  was  first  argued  in  that  court  at  the  December  term  186T ; 
and  at  the  December  term  1868  it  was  elaborately  reargued, 
specially  with  reference  to  the  constitutional  question. 

The  case  was  considered  carefully  and  anxiously,  and  deci 
sion  of  it  was  not  made  until  the  December  term  1869,  when 
the  legal-tender  act  was  declared  unconstitutional.  The  mem 
bers  of  the  court  concurring  in  the  opinion — which  was  pre 
pared  and  read  by  Chief-Justice  Chase — were,  the  Chief-Jus 
tice,  and  Associate  Justices  Kelson,  Clifford,  Grier,  and  Field ; 
the  dissenting  opinion  was  read  by  Justice  Miller,  and  was  for 
himself  and  Justices  Swayne  and  Davis. 

The  syllabus  of  the  case  as  reported  shows  that  the  court,  or 
rather  a  majority  of  its  members,  affirmed  these  propositions  : 

L  Construed  by  the  plain  import  of  their  terms  and  the  manifest  in 
tent  of  the  Legislature,  the  statutes  of  1862  and  1863,  which  make  United 
States  notes  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts,  public  and  private,  apply  to 
debts  contracted  before  as  well  as  to  debts  contracted  after  enactment. 

II.  . 


260  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Ill 

IV.  There  is  in  the  Constitution  no  express  grant  of  legislative  power 
to  make  any  description  of  credit  currency  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of 
debts. 

V.  The  words  "  all  laws  necessary  and  proper  for  carrying  into  execu 
tion"  powers  expressly  granted  or  vested  have,  in  the  Constitution,  a 
sense  equivalent  to  that  of  the  word  laws,  not  absolutely  necessary  in 
deed,  but  appropriate,  plainly  adapted  to  constitutional  and  legitimate 
ends,  which  are  not  prohibited,  but  consistent  with  the  letter  and  spirit 
of  the  Constitution ;  laws  really  calculated  to  effect  objects  intrusted  to 
the  Government. 

VI.  Among  means  appropriate,  plainly  adapted,  not  inconsistent  with 
the  spirit  of  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  its  terms,  the  Legislature 
has  unrestricted  choice  ;  but  no  power  can  be  derived  by  implication  from 
any  express  power  to  enact  laws  as  means  for  carrying  it  into  execution 
unless  such  laws  come  within  this  description. 

VII.  The  making  of  notes  or  bills  of  credit  a  legal  tender  in  payment 
of  preexisting  debts  is  not  a  means  appropriate,  plainly  adapted,  or  really 
calculated  to  carry  into  effect  any  express  power  vested  in  Congress  ;  is  in 
consistent  with  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution ;  and  is  prohibited  by  the 
Constitution. 

VHI.  The  clause  in  the  acts,  of  1862  and  1863  which  makes  United 
States  notes  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  all  debts,  public  and  private,  is, 
so  far  as  it  applies  to  debts  contracted  before  the  passage  of  those  acts, 
unwaTranted  by  the  Constitution. 

IX.  Prior  to  the  25th  of  February,  1862,  all  contracts  for  the  payment 
of  money,  not  expressly  stipulating  otherwise,  were,  in  legal  effect  and  uni 
versal  understanding,  contracts  for  the  payment  of  com,  and,  under  the 
Constitution,  the  parties  to  such  contracts  are  respectively  entitled  to  de 
mand  and  bound  to  pay  the  sums  due,  according  to  their  terms,  in  coin, 
notwithstanding  the  clause  in  that  act,  and  the  subsequent  acts  of  like 
tenor,  which  made  United  State  notes  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  such 
debts. 

This  judgment 'of  the  Supreme  Court  was  indorsed  by  many 
of  the  most  influential  Kepublican  journals,  and  no  doubt  had  an 
important  beneficial  effect  upon  the  national  credit  both  at  home 
and  abroad.  But  an  immediate  effort  was  made  to  reverse  it. 
The  circumstances  attending  that  effort  attracted  wide  attention 
and  much  severe  comment. 

It  was  freely  charged  by  Democratic  partisans  and  by  some 
Republicans  also,  that  if  the  judgment  in  Hepburn  against  Gris- 
wold  had  not  been  inimical  to  the  interests  of  certain  powerful 
railroad  corporations,  it  would  have  stood.  It  was  alleged  and 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  SUPREME  COURT.  2G1 

was  not  denied,  that  when  Messrs.  Strong  and  Bradley  were 
made  members  of  the  court  they  were  both  interested  as  share 
holder  in  the  Camden  &  Amboy  Railroad  Company.  It  was 
alleged  also  that  one  or  both  these  gentlemen  had  formerly  been 
employed  as  law  counsel  by  that  company,  and  as  such  counsel 
had  given  opinions  affirming  the  legal  tender  to  be  constitu 
tional.  It  was  known  too,  that  the  Camden  &  Amboy  Com 
pany  had,  in  paying  the  interest  upon  their  bonds  subsequent  to 
the  decision  in  Hepburn  against  Griswold,  made  a  reservation 
looking  to  a  reversal  of  the  judgment  in  that  case. 

But  it  is  seems  incredible  that  a  motive  so  inadequate  and 
ignoble  as  the  pecuniary  interests  of  any  private  corporations 
could  have  moved  the  President  to  the  appointment  of  the  new 
justices,  or  the  new  justices  to  their  perhaps  indiscreetly  prompt 
efforts  to  procure  a  reversal ;  to  the  mind  of  leading  Republicans 
— men  of  irreproachable  character  and  patriotism — it  seemed  of 
vital  importance  to  the  best  interests  of  the  country  that  the 
legal  tender  should  be  supported  by  the  court.  The  immense 
services  it  had  performed  in  the  overthrow  of  the  rebellion  were 
admitted.  Many  public  men  believed  that  without  it  the  national 
efforts  would  have  been  in  vain.  Its  use  might  become  just  as 
indispensable  in  some  future  great  emergency.  Should  the 
country  be  deprived,  by  judical  interpretation,  of  recourse  to  it 
if  the  necessity  should  ever  again  arise  ?  To  say  that  it  should, 
seemed  a  kind  of  political  suicide. 

Mr.  Justice  Strong  became  a  member  of  the  Supreme  Court 
on  the  14th  of  March,  1870,  by  nomination  and  confirmation,  in 
place  of  Mr.  Justice  Grier,  whose  resignation  took  effect  on 
the  1st  of  February ;  but  there  was  no  intimation  of  any  pur 
pose  to  urge  a  reargument  of  the  legal-tender  question  until 
after  the  confirmation  by  the  Senate  of  Mr.  Bradley  as  an  addi 
tional  justice,  whose  appointment  was  authorized  by  an  act  of 
Congress  passed  April  10,  1869,  to  take  effect  on  the  first 
Monday  of  the  succeeding  December,  and  who  was  confirmed 
some  weeks  after  his  nomination,  on  the  21st  of  March,  1870. 
Mr.  Justice  Bradley  went  from  New  Jersey  to  Washington  on 
the  22d  of  March ;  he  was  sworn  into  office  on  the  23d,  and 
took  his  seat  as  a  member  of  the  court  on  the  24th.  The  next 
day,  Friday,  the  first  motion  day  afterward,  the  Attorney-Gen- 


262  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

eral  moved  the  court  that  the  two  cases  of  Lathams  vs.  The 
United  States,  and  Deming  against  the  same,  appealed  from  the 
Court  of  Claims,  should  be  set  down  for  argument — and  sug 
gested  that  the  legal  tender  might  be  reconsidered  in  them.  The 
next  day  (Saturday,  March  26th)  was  the  regular  conference-day 
of  the  court,  and  upon  that  occasion  the  motion  of  the  Attorney- 
General  was  considered.  The  four  justices  who  had  joined  in 
the  judgment  in  Hepburn  against  Griswold  earnestly  opposed  a 
reopening  of  the  legal-tender  question ;  but  the  justices  who 
had  dissented  from  that  judgment  insisted  upon  a  rehearing. 
Their  wishes  prevailed  by  the  votes  of  the  new  justices.  An 
order  was  directed,  accordingly,  that  the  cases  involved  in  the 
motion  of  the  Attorney-General  should  be  assigned  for  argument 
on  the  4th  of  April — being  the  second  Monday  then  ensuing. 
This  order  was  in  disregard  of  the  usual  practice,  which  is  to  leave 
the  time  for  argument  in  cases  situated  as  these  were  to  be  fixed 
by  the  counsel,  subject,  of  course,  to  the  approval  of  the  court. 

Before  the  order  was  announced,  however,  Mr.  James  M.  Car 
lisle — who  was  of  counsel  for  both  appellants — addressed  a  letter 
to  the  Chief -Justice,  in  which  he  protested  against  a  reargument 
of  the  legal-tender  question  in  these  cases.  The  rights  of  his 
clients,  he  said,  had  already  been  determined ;  and  the  reopen 
ing  of  the  question  would  be  an  injustice  to  them. 

This  being  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  justices  before 
the  opening  of  the  court  on  Monday  morning,  when  the  order 
for  reargument  would  have  been  announced  in  the  due  course  of 
the  proceedings,  the  announcement  was  postponed  until  after 
the  protest  of  Mr.  Carlisle  could  be  considered.  One  of  the 
justices  being  absent,  it  was  agreed  that  it  should  be  considered 
the  next  day  after  adjournment  of  the  court,  which  happened 
accordingly. 

The  result  of  the  discussion  of  Mr.  Carlisle's  protest  on  Tues 
day  was  an  order  that  the  Attorney-General  and  Mr.  Carlisle 
should  be  heard  upon  the  matters  involved  in  the  motion  of  the 
former  on  Thursday  morning,  March  31st,  and  that  the  subject 
be  considered  in  conference  immediately  after  the  adjournment 
of  the  court  on  that  day,  and  that  the  result  of  the  conference 
should  be  announced  on  the  opening  of  the  court  the  next 
morning. 


ATTEMPT  TO  REVERSE  HEPBURN  VS.  GRISWOLD.  263 

This  was  a  remarkable  order,  and,  so  far  as  the  history  of 
the  court  is  known,  was  without  precedent.  The  regular  motion- 
day  is  Friday,  and  the  regular  conference-day  is  Saturday ;  and 
there  is  no  instance  upon  the  records  which  shows  any  anticipa 
tion  of  the  regular  order  of  the  business  of  those  days  to  reach 
a  particular  case.  This  order  was  also  made  against  the  remon 
strances  of  the  justices  who  agreed  in  the  judgment  in  Hepburn 
vs.  Griswold,  and  by  the  votes  of  the  three  justices  who  dis 
sented  in  that  case,  and  of  the  two  new  justices  ;  and  was  car 
ried  into  full  effect. 

On  Thursday  morning,  accordingly,  the  Attorney-General  and 
Mr.  Carlisle  were  heard,  an  argument  in  progress  (also  in  viola 
tion  of  precedent)  being  suspended,  that  they  might  be  heard. 
The  conference  was  held  immediately  after  the  adjournment,  as 
had  been  determined ;  and  a  new  order  was  passed — no  inquiry 
being  made  into  the  convenience  of  counsel,  as  was  the  custom 
— that  the  "  cases  of  Latham  vs.  The  United  States  and  Deming 
vs.  The  United  States  be  heard  upon  all  the  questions  involved 
in  the  records  on  the  second  Monday  of  April  of  this  term  " 
(which  would  be  April  the  llth).  "When  this  order  was  an 
nounced  in  court  on  the  next  day,  the  Chief -Justice  distinctly 
stated  that  he  and  justices  Nelson,  Clifford  and  Field,  dissented 
from  it. 

In  consequence,  however,  of  the  unavoidable  absence  of  Mr. 
Carlisle,  the  hearing  was  postponed  until  the  18th  of  April. 

These  two  cases  of  Lathams  vs.  The  United  States,  and  Dem- 
ing  vs.  The  same,  were  appeals  from  the  Court  of  Claims,  and  so 
far  as  the  legal-tender  questipn  was  involved  in  them,  they  had 
been  continued  under  an  order  of  the  court,  distinctly  announced 
by  the  Chief-Justice — and  acquiesced  in  by  the  counsel  both 
for  the  appellants  and  the  Government — that  argument  would 
not  be  heard  in  them,  but  that  they  should  abide  the  judgment 
in  Hepburn  against  Griswold,  and  in  Bronson  against  Rodes ; 
two  cases  which  covered  the  exact  points  raised  in  the  cases  of 
the  Lathams  and  of  Deming.  The  purpose  of  the  Attorney- 
General  in  moving  to  reargue  the  legal  tender  in  these  cases,  was 
to  avoid  the  effect  of  a  settled  rule  of  the  court  made  in  1852, 
that  "  no  reargument  will  be  granted  in  any  case,  unless  a  mem 
ber  of  the  court  who  concurred  in  the  judgment  desires  it." 


264  LIFE  °F  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

No  argument,  it  was  true,  had  been  heard  in  the  cases  of  the 
Lathams  and  of  Derning,  but  those  cases  were  as  actually  decided 
by  the  opinions  in  the  other  cases  as  if  they  had  been  argued 
and  opinions  delivered  in  both;  and  the  effort  to  revive  the 
legal -tender  question  in  them  was  in  substance  at  least  a  viola 
tion  of  the  rule  of  the  court,  since  no  justice  who  concurred  in 
the  opinion  in  Hepburn  against  Griswold  had  intimated  any 
desire  for  a  reargument. 

The  Chief -Justice  called  the  attention  of  the  justices  to  these 
facts,  believing  that  so  far  as  the  legal-tender  question  was  in 
volved  in  the  cases,  the  order  for  reargument  might  be  rescinded. 
But  without  effect.  The  same  members  of  the  court  who  had 
made  the  order  for  the  argument  were  resolute  in  adhering  to  it. 

The  question  was  now  made  whether  the  new  justices  were 
not  disqualified  by  reason  of  interest  in  the  Camden  &  Amboy 
Railroad  Company ;  it  being  known  that  the  board  of  directors 
of  that  company  had  made  their  payment  of  interest  in  coin 
contingent  upon  the  permanence  of  the  decision  in  Hepburn 
against  Griswold.  It  transpired  that  one  of  the  new  justices 
had  sold  his  stock  in  that  company  upon  being  advised  of  his 
appointment,  and  the  other  stated  his  purpose  to  do  so — though 
he  did  not  seem  to  think  that  the  small  sum  of  the  stock  he  held 
should  operate  as  a  disqualification  to  determine  upon  the  ques 
tion. 

On  Monday  the  18th,  just  before  going  into  court,  the  Chief- 
Justice  and  the  justices  learned  that  the  cases  would  probably 
be  dismissed.  And  this  happened  :  When  the  cases  of  the 
Lathams  and  of  Deming  were  called,  one  of  the  counsel  repre 
senting  the  appellants  in  both  cases,  arose  and  said  that  with  the 
permission  of  the  court  he  would  move  to  dismiss  them.  To 
this  objection  was  made  by  the  Attorn'ey-General,  and  Justices 
Miller  and  Bradley  suggested  doubts  as  to  the  rights  of  appel 
lants  to  withdraw  the  appeals.  Upon  request  of  Justice  Miller 
the  court  retired  for  consultation.  In  the  consultation  which  fol 
lowed,  no  objection  was  made  to  the  dismissal  by  any  one  except 
Justice  Bradley.  It  was  agreed,  however,  that  the  leave  should 
be  allowed ;  and  upon  the  return  of  the  justices,  the  Chief -Jus 
tice  made  the  announcement,  and  the  cases  were  dismissed 
accordingly. 


REVERSAL  OF  HEPBURN  VS.  GRISWOLD.  265 

The  formal  reversal  of  the  judgment  in  Hepburn  against 
Griswold  did  not  take  place  until  the  next  term  of  the  court ; 
but  the  events  just  recited  gave  ample  notice  to  the  country  that 
a  reversal  would  be  effected  at  the  first  opportunity ;  and  that 
the  opportunity  would  certainly  come,  and  that  happened  which 
it  was  intended  by  the  majority  in  the  court  should  happen — to 
wit :  the  decision  in  Hepburn  against  Griswold  was  everywhere 
throughout  the  country  treated  as  a  nullity. 

....  There  has  been  no  amplification  of  details  in  the 
foregoing  recital  of  the  attempt  to  reverse  Hepburn  against  Gris 
wold,  as  it  happened  immediately  after  Justice  Bradley  became 
a  member  of  the  court.  There  was  some  heated  discussion  in 
the  conferences  (as  was  perfectly  well  known  at  the  time),  and 
a  lack  of  dignity  and  courtesy  in  what  transpired  in  public. 
The  reversal  was  an  event  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  the 
great  tribunal ;  and  in  view  of  all  the  circumstances  attending 
upon  it,  has  justly  been  called  revolutionary.  Aside  from  what 
took  place  in  the  court,  in  connection  with  the  reversal,  the 
action  of  the  political  and  executive  departments  of  the  Gov 
ernment  in  bringing  it  about,  is  an  integral  and  important  part 
of  this  history. 

The  case  of  Hepburn  against  Griswold  was  first  argued  at 
the  December  term,  1867,  but  upon  the  suggestion  of  the  Attor 
ney-General,  an  order  was  made  that  it  be  reargued,  and  the 
case  was  continued  accordingly  for  that  purpose.  It  was  at  the 
next  term  of  the  court  again  heard,  and  four  or  five  other  cases 
— supposed  to  involve  the  same  constitutional  questions — were 
argued  at  the  same  time,  bringing,  as  Mr.  Justice  Clifford  ob 
served,  to  the  aid  of  the  court  an  unusual  array  of  great  learn 
ing  and  eminent  abilities.  The  Supreme  Court  at  that  time 
consisted  of  seven  justices  and  the  Chief -Justice ;  and  an  act  of 
Congress  (July  23,  1863)  was  in  force  that  no  vacancy  in  the 
office  of  associate-justice  should  be  filled  until  after  the  number 
of  associate-justices  should  be  reduced  to  sjx.  But  meantime, 
pending  the  consultations  of  the  court  on  the  question — which 
extended  through  several  months — it  began  to  be  well  under 
stood  by  the  public  that  a  majority  of  its  members  were  against 
the  legal  tender ;  and  opinions  delivered  in  February,  1869,  in 
two  of  the  cases  in  which  the  legal  tender  was  more  or  less  in- 


266  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

volved,  pro  tanto  denied  its  constitutionality.  On  the  10th  of 
April,  1869,  Congress  passed  an  act,  to  take  effect  December  1st 
following,  by  which  the  court  was  again  enlarged :  it  was  there 
after  to  consist  of  eight  associate-justices  and  the  Chief -Justice. 
Justices  Nelson  and  Grier  were  both  old  men,  and  Justice  Grier 
was  very  feeble  and  infirm,  and  it  was  well  known  wished  to 
retire.  But  Justice  Grier  did  not  die,  nor  did  he  resign,  and  it 
was  useless  to  appoint  the  additional  justice  provided  for  by  the 
act  of  April  10,  1869,  until  a  vacancy  occurred,  either  by  death 
or  resignation,  for  such  an  appointment  would  still  leave  the 
justices  in  favor  of  the  legal-tender  in  a  minority  in  the  court. 
November  27,  1869,  Hepburn  against  Griswold  was  decided  in 
conference ;  in  the  judgment  then  determined,  Justice  Grier 
cordially  concurred.  He  resigned  February  1,  1870 ;  six  days 
later,  February  7th,  the  opinion  of  the  court  was  read  and 
entered.  On  the  14th  of  the  same  month  Mr.  Justice  Strong 
became  a  member,  and  on  the  24th  of  March  following  Mr. 
Justice  Bradley  took  his  seat  in  the  court.  The  attempt  at  a 
reversal  of  Hepburn  against  Griswold,  which  so  immediately 
ensued,  is  recited  in  the  consecutive  order  of  the  events  attend 
ing  upon  it,  in  its  proper  place  in  this  chapter. 

....  The  partisans  of  the  legal-tender  system,  in  their  criti 
cisms  upon  Mr.  Chase's  opinion  in  Hepburn  against  Griswold, 
arraigned  him  for  inconsistency.  How  far  that  charge  is  borne 
out  by  the  facts  of  history,  the  reader  may  inform  himself  by 
reading  the  chapter  of  this  book  immediately  preceding  this. 
With  but  a  single  exception,  there  is  no  utterance  of  Mr.  Chase 
upon  the  subject  of  the  legal  tender  there  cited  which  is  not, 
and  has  not  for  many  years  been,  of  public  record.  They  are 
conclusive  that,  at  the  time  of  the  legal  tender  act  he  doubted 
the  constitutional! ty  of  the  measure.  That,  though  unconvinced, 
he  yielded  his  doubts,  is  not  surprising.  Some  of  the  ablest  of 
his  political  associates  in  the  Senate  and  House  believed  the 
measure  to  be  constitutional ;  the  members  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
cabinet,  with  perhaps  a  single  exception,  joined  in  that  belief ; 
and  the  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States,  said  to  be  a 
lawyer  of  great  abilities  and  competent  learning,  gave  a  written 
opinion  to  the  effect  that  it  was  so.  But  Mr.  Chase  was  not 
hasty  or  inconsiderate  in  his  judicial  action.  He  gave  to  the 


MR.  CHASE  ON  THE  LEGAL  TENDER.          267 

subject  exhaustive  historical  and  legal  research,  and  a  long  and 
patient  reflection.  The  ultimate  conviction  of  his  judgment 
was  against  the  act ;  and  as  he  never  hesitated  in  the  discharge 
of  a  known  duty,  he  did  not  hesitate  in  this.  But  he  thought 
his  former  connection  with  the  matter  sufficiently  important  to 
justify  some  words  of  explanation.  "It  is  not  surprising,"  he 
therefore  said,  in  his  opinion  in  Hepburn  against  Griswold  — 
"  it  is  not  surprising  that,  amid  the  tumult  of  the  late  civil  war, 
and  under  the  influence  of  apprehensions  for  the  safety  of  the 
republic  almost  universal,  different  views,  never  before  enter 
tained  by  American  statesmen  or  jurists,  were  adopted  by  many. 
The  time  was  not  favorable  to  considerate  reflection  upon  the 
constitutional  limits  of  legislative  or  executive  authority.  If 
power  was  assumed  from  patriotic  motives,  the  assumption 
found  ready  justification  in  patriotic  hearts.  Many  who  doubted 
yielded  their  doubts;  many  who  did  not  doubt  were  silent. 
Some  who  were  strongly  averse  to  making  Government  notes  a 
legal  tender  felt  themselves  constrained  to  acquiesce  in  the  views 
of  the  advocates  of  the  measure.  Not  a  few  who  then  insisted 
upon  its  necessity,  or  acquiesced  in  that  view,  have,  since  the 
return  of  peace,  and  under  the  influence  of  the  calmer  time, 
reconsidered  their  conclusions,  and  now  concur  in  those  which 
we  have  just  announced.  These  conclusions  seem  to  us  to  be 
fully  sanctioned  by  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Constitution." 

And  in  his  dissenting  opinion  in  the  "  legal-tender  cases " 
of  Knox  against  Lee,  and  Parker  against  Davis l  (it  was  in  these 
cases  that  Hepburn  against  Griswold  was  reversed),  he  said : 
"  The  reference  made  in  the  opinion  of  the  court,  as  well  as  in 
the  argument  at  the  bar,  to  the  opinions  of  the  Chief -Justice 
when  he  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  seems  to  warrant,  if  it 
does  not  require,  some  observations  before  proceeding  further. 

"It  was  his  fortune  at  the  time  the  legal-tender  clause 
was  inserted  in  the  bill  to  authorize  the  issue  of  United 
States  notes,  and  received  the  sanction  of  Congress,  to  be 
charged  with  the  anxious  and  responsible  duty  of  providing 
funds  for  the  prosecuting  of  the  war.  In  no  report  made  by 
him  to  Congress  was  the  expedient  of  making  the  notes  of  the 

i  12  Wallace,  457. 


268  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

United  States  a  legal  tender  suggested.  He  urged  the  issue  of 
notes  payable  on  demand,  in  coin,  or  received  as  coin  in  pay 
ment  of  duties.  "When  the  State  banks  had  suspended  specie 
payments,  he  recommended  the  issue  of  United  States  notes, 
receivable  for  all  loans  to  the  United  States  and  all  Government 
dues  except  duties  on  imports.  In  his  report  of  December, 
1862,  he  said  that  United  States  notes  receivable  for  bonds 
hearing  a  secure  specie  interest  are  next  ~best  to  notes  converti 
ble  into  coin,  and  after  stating  the  financial  measures  which  in 
his  judgment  were  advisable,  he  added :  6  The  Secretary  recom 
mends,  therefore,  no  mere  paper-money  scheme,  but,  on  the  con 
trary,  a  series  of  measures  looking  to  a  gradual  and  safe  return 
to  gold  and  silver  as  the  only  permanent  basis,  standard,  and 
measure  of  value  recognized  by  the  Constitution.'1  At  the  ses 
sion  of  Congress  before  this  report  was  made,  the  bill  containing 
the  legal-tender  clause  had  become  a  law.  He  was  extremely 
and  avowedly  averse  to  this  clause,  but  was  very  solicitous  for 
the  passage  of  the  bill  to  authorize  the  issue  of  United  States 
notes  then  pending.  He  thought  it  indispensably  necessary 
that  the  authority  to  issue  these  notes  should  be  granted  by 
Congress.  The  passage  of  the  bill  was  delayed,  if  not  jeoparded, 
by  the  difference  of  opinion  which  prevailed  on  the  question  of 
making  them  a  legal  tender.  It  was  under  these  circumstances 
that  he  expressed  the  opinion,  when  called  upon  by  the  Com 
mittee  of  Ways  and  Means,  that  it  was  necessary ;  and  he  was 
not  sorry  to  find  the  act  sustained  by  the  decisions  of  respectable 
courts,  not  unanimous,  indeed,  nor  without  contrary  decisions 
of  State  courts  equally  respectable.  Examination  and  reflection 
under  more  propitious  circumstances  have  satisfied  him  that  this 
opinion  was  erroneous,  and  he  does  not  hesitate  to  declare  it. 
He  would  do  so  just  as  unhesitatingly,  if  his  favor  to  the  legal- 
tender  clause  had  been  at  that  time  decided,  and  his  opinion  as 
to  the  constitutionality  of  the  measure  clear." 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 

THE   TEMPOKAJRY-LOAN  SYSTEM — ITS   USEFULNESS CERTIFICATES   OF 

INDEBTEDNESS — THE  FIVE-TWENTIES CONDITION  OF  THE  NA 
TIONAL  FINANCES  JUNE  30,  1862 — THE  PUBLIC  DEBT — CONSE 
QUENCES  OF  THE  SUSPENSION  OF  CASH  PAYMENTS. 

IT  has  already  been  explained  that,  pending  the  discussion  in 
Congress  of  the  legal-tender  act,  the  Government  suffered 
great  embarrassment  for  want  of  means  to  meet  its  constantly- 
accumulating  engagements.  But  beyond  any  former  experience 
the  banks  were  plethoric  of  funds.  In  the  city  of  New  York,  for 
illustration,  the  deposits  in  December,  1860,  were  one  hundred 
and  fourteen  millions ;  in  December,  1861,  they  were  one  hun 
dred  and  forty-six  millions,  and  at  the  latter  period  the  loans 
and  discounts  by  the  same  banks  were  twelve  millions  less  than 
they  had  been  at  the  former.  The  rule  held  good  in  all  the 
large  cities.  The  regular  business  of  the  country  had  been  ex 
tensively  injured  and  reduced  by  the  war,  with  the  effect  of 
withdrawing  funds  from  active  industrial  enterprise,  and  their 
accumulation  in  the  vaults  of  banks  and  bankers. 

In  these  circumstances,  and  seriously  oppressed  by  the  rapid 
and  largely  accruing  demands  upon  him,  the  Secretary  consulted 
with  his  Assistant  Treasurer  at  JSTew  York,  Mr.  John  J.  Cisco. 
Mr.  Cisco  was  perfectly  familiar  with  the  monetary  condition  of 
the  country,  and  was  eminently  practical  in  his  financial  views. 
He  proposed  to  Mr.  Chase  that  system  of  TEMPOKAJRY  LOANS, 
which  was  subsequently  found  to  be  one  of  the  most  important 
supports  of  the  Treasury.  The  plan  was  to  receive  on  deposit 
in  the  sub  -Treasury  the  funds  of  individuals  or  corporations  at 


270  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

a  rate  of  interest  not  exceeding  five  per  cent,  per  annum ;  the 
depositors  retaining  the  privilege  of  withdrawing  their  funds  at 
any  time — on  ten  days'  notice — after  thirty  days. 

Mr.  Chase  immediately  adopted  this  proposition.  Its  suc 
cessful  operation  was  surprisingly  great  and  immediate.  "Within 
a  very  few  days  after  making  public  announcement  the  tempo 
rary  deposits  aggregated  many  millions  of  dollars.  The  banks 
and  other  corporations  and  private  persons  promptly  availed  them 
selves  of  its  benefits  with  instantly  important  relief  to  the  Treas 
ury  and  almost  equally  important  advantage  to  the  general  busi 
ness  interests  of  the  community ;  and  Congress,  upon  the  recom 
mendation  of  the  Secretary,  in  the  fourth  section  of  the  "  Legal- 
Tender  Act,"  of  the  25th  of  February,  1862,  authorized  these 
temporary  loans  to  an  amount  not  exceeding  twenty-five  mill 
ions  of  dollars.  The  offers  were  so  much  larger,  however,  than 
the  sum  fixed  by  the  law,  that,  on  the  17th  of  March  following, 
the  limit  was  increased  to  fifty  millions ;  and  four  months  later, 
on  the  llth  of  July,  was  again  increased ;  this  time  to  one  hun 
dred  millions,  and  the  Secretary  was  at  the  same  time  authorized 
to  prepare  fifty  millions  of  United  States  notes  as  a  reserve  to 
meet  demands  for  their  reimbursement  beyond  other  convenient 
means  of  satisfaction.  On  the  30th  of  January,  1864,  the  limit 
was  fixed  at  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions,  and  the  Secretary 
was  authorized  to  pay  six  per  cent,  interest  at  his  discretion. 

The  beneficent  operation  of  these  several  acts  is  easily  in 
ferred  from  the  fact  that  so  early  as  the  1st  of  July,  1862,  the 
amount  of  temporary  loan  on  deposit  in  the  sub-Treasury  was 
nearly  fifty-eight  millions  of  dollars  ($57,926,116.57),  and  at  one 
period  during  the  war  reached  the  very  high  aggregate  of  one 
hundred  and  twenty  millions.  The  system  was  not  alone  of 
great  advantage  to  the  Government,  but  was  extremely  useful  in 
giving  steadiness  to  the  course  of  the  currency  exchanges.  Its 
utility  was  conspicuous  when,  during  a  period  of  pressure  in  the 
fall  of  1863,  the  Secretary  was  able  to  reimburse  over  fifty  mill 
ions  of  deposits  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks,  by  which  action  a 
pressure  was  alleviated  which  otherwise  might  have  grown  into  a 
common  calamity,  and  the  Secretary  used  at  the  same  time  only 
about  ten  millions  of  the  reserve. 

On  the  1st  of  March,  1862,  Congress  authorized  the  Secre- 


CERTIFICATES  OF  INDEBTEDNESS— FIVE-TWENTIES.          271 

tary  to  issue  "  certificates  of  indebtedness  of  the  United  States  " 
to  such  creditors  of  the  Government  as  were  willing  to  receive 
them  in  exchange  for  audited  accounts.  These  certificates  were 
payable  one  year  from  date,  and  were  to  bear  interest  at  the  rate 
of  six  per  centum,  payable  in  gold  upon  such  as  were  issued 
prior  to  March  4, 1863,  and  in  currency  upon  those  issued  after 
that  date.  They  were  not  limited  in  amount,  and  were  to  be  in 
sums  not  less  than  one  thousand  dollars  each.  By  the  act  of  March 
17,  1862,  this  authority  was  enlarged,  so  as  to  embrace  checks 
drawn  in  favor  of  creditors  "  by  disbursing  officers  upon  sums 
placed  to  their  credit  on  the  books  of  the  United  States  Treas 
urer."  "  The  power  thus  conferred  on  the  Secretary,"  says  Mr. 
Spaulding,1  "  to  issue  certificates  of  indebtedness  for  the^e  pur 
poses  was  broad  and  unlimited.  The  certificates  issued  under 
these  two  acts  were  in  the  similitude  of  bank-notes  fitted  for 
circulation  as  money,  and  did  circulate  to  a  considerable  extent 
as  currency  until  there  was  such  an  accumulation  of  interest 
upon  them  as  to  make  it  an  object  for  capitalists  to  hold  them 
as  an  investment.  The  Secretary  began  their  issue  simultane 
ously  with  the  issue  of  the  legal-tender  United  States  notes,  and 
continued  to  issue  them  in  large  amounts  during  the  progress  of 
the  war,  which  was  advantageous  to  the  Government,  but  was 
at  the  same  time  a  fruitful  source  of  inflation,  and  operated  di 
rectly  against  any  considerable  funding  in  the  long  { five- twenty ' 
bonds."  In  time  extensive  issue  led  to  their  depreciation,  but 
they  were  chiefly  received  by  creditors  who  made  large  percent 
ages  on  their  contracts  with  the  Government. 

The  act  of  the  25th  of  February,  1862 — the  same  which  au 
thorized  the  original  issue  of  the  legal-tender  United  States 
notes — in  order  "to  enable  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to 
fund  the  Treasury  notes  and  floating  debt  of  the  United  States," 
authorized  him  also  to  issue,  "  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States, 
coupon  or  registered  bonds,  to  an  amount  not  exceeding  five 
hundred  millions  of  dollars,  redeemable  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
United  States  after  five  years,  and  payable  twenty  years  from 
date,  and  bearing  interest  at  the  rate  of  six  per  centum  per  an 
num,  payable  semi-annually ; "  these  bonds,  and  all  other  bonds, 
stocks,  and  other  securities  of  the  United  States,  held  within 

1  "  History  of  the  Legal-Tender  Paper  Money  of  the  Rebellion,"  pp.  153,  154. 


272  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

the  United  States,  were  declared  "  exempt  from  taxation  by  or 
under  State  authority,"  and  "all  duties  on  imported  goods, 
which  shall  be  paid  in  coin  or  in  notes  payable  on  demand  here 
tofore  authorized  to  be  received  and  by  law  receivable  in  public 
dues,  and  the  coin  so  paid,  shall  be  set  apart  as  a  special  fund," 
and  was  to  be  applied  in  the  first  instance  to  the  payment  of  in 
terest  on  the  bonds  and  notes  of  the  United  States,  and  the  resi 
due  to  other  specified  purposes.  The  bonds  here  aiithorized  were 
those  afterward  familiarly  known  as  the  "  five-twenties,"  or  the 
"  five-twenty-sixes."  Of  these  five-twenty  bonds  there  were  out 
standing  on  the  30th  of  June,  being  the  last  day  of  the  fiscal 
year  1862,  an  aggregate  amount  of  $13,990,600. 

"  These  several  measures,"  said  Mr.  Chase  in  his  report  sub 
mitted  to  Congress  December  4, 1862,  "  have  worked  well.  Their 
results  have  more  than  fulfilled  the  anticipations  of  the  Secre 
tary.  Had  other  urgent  demands  on  the  attention  of  Congress 
permitted  the  consideration  and  adoption  of  the  suggestions 
which  the  Secretary  ventured  to  submit  in  favor  of  authorizing 
the  formation,  under  a  general  law,  of  banking  associations  issu 
ing  only  uniform  notes  prepared  and  furnished  by  the  general 
Government,  and  of  imposing  a  reasonable  tax  on  the  circula 
tion  of  other  institutions,  no  financial  necessity  would  perhaps 
now  demand  additional  legislation  for  the  current  fiscal  year 
(1863),  except  such  as  experience  suggested  for  the  perfection  of 
measures  already  sanctioned."  He  then  made  a  statement  exhib 
iting  the  practical  working  of  the  measures  already  in  force :  To 
the  1st  day  of  July,  1862,  $57,926,116.57  had  been  received 
and  were  remaining  on  deposit  in  the  Treasury.  United  States 
notes  to  the  amount  of  $158,591,230  had  been  issued  and  were 
in  circulation ;  $49,881,979.73  had  been  paid  in  certificates  of 
indebtedness ;  and  $208,345,291.86  had  been  paid  in  cash.  'Not 
a  single  requisition  from  any  department  upon  the  Treasury  re 
mained  unanswered.  Every  audited  and  settled  claim,  on  the 
Government,  and  every  quartermaster's  check  for  supplies  fur 
nished,  which  had  reached  the  Treasury  had  been  met ;  and  there 
remained  an  unexpended  balance  of  $13,043,546.81. 

The  public  debt  at  the  same  date  was  $514,211,371.92.  The 
whole  income  for  the  year,  from  all  sources,  including  a  balance 
in  the  Treasury,  on  the  1st  of  July,  1861,  was  $583,885,247  06, 


SUMMARY  FOR  FISCAL  YEAR   18G2.  273 

and  tlie  whole  expenditures  had  been  $570,841,700.25.  There 
should  be  deducted  from  these  figures,  however,  income  and  dis 
bursements  on  account  of  the  permanent  and  temporary  debt, 
which  amounted  to  $96,096,922.09 ;  so  that  the  total  income  not 
applied  to  repayments  was  $487,788,324.97,  and  the  total  dis 
bursements  $474,744,778.16.  The  Secretary  said  the  average 
interest  upon  the  whole  debt  was  four  and  three-fifths  per  cent., 
and  that  it  had  been  his  constant  care  to  reduce  its  cost  in  the 
form  of  interest  to  the  lowest  possible  figure.  But  he  was  not 
hopeful,  he  added,  that  his  exhibit  for  the  fiscal  year  1863  would 
show  so  favorable  a  rate. 

Immediately  consequent  upon  the  suspension  of  cash  pay 
ments  in  December  preceding,  gold  and  silver  had  disappeared 
from  circulation ;  small  coins  as  well  as  large.  Specie  began, 
almost  immediately  upon  suspension,  to  command  a  premium ; 
and  on  the  13th  of  January,  1862,  it  was  already  at  three 
per  cent. !  and  fluctuated  between  one  per  cent,  and  nine  and 
one-half  to  the  30th  of  June,  at  which  date  it  had  reached 
nine  and  one-fourth  per  cent.  Meantime  the  State  banks  had 
entered  upon  a  career  of  expansion,  which  had  its  relative  effect 
upon  the  price  of  gold ;  and,  in  the  absence  of  small  coins,  the 
country  began  to  be  flooded  with  tokens  and  "  shinplasters  "  in 
fractional  parts  of  dollars,  issued  by  cities,  towns,  corporations, 
brokers,  merchants,  grocers,  bakers,  liquor-sellers,  and  restaurant- 
keepers,  everywhere !  With  these  difficulties  to  deal  with,  and 
in  the  midst  of  military  discouragements,  the  Treasury  entered 
upon  the  second  fiscal  year  of  the  rebellion,  July  1,  1863. 
18 


CHAPTEE    XXX. 

LETTEES     AND     EXTKACTS    FROM    LETTERS    WRITTEN     IN     1861 OF 

APPOINTMENTS    IN    THE    TREASURY    DEPARTMENT EMANCIPA 
TION   A   PROBABLE    RESULT    OF   THE   WAR NATIONAL   LOAN 

EMANCIPATION   PROCLAMATIONS   BY   COMMANDING-   GENERALS 

DUTY  OF   GOVERNMENT   TO   PROVIDE   A  NATIONAL    CURRENCY 

WAR      DEPARTMENT    EXPENDITURES     1861 WHAT    MR.     CHASE 

THOUGHT   OF  MR.    CAMERON. 

To .1 

11  April  16, 1861. 

«  ^TTTHATEYER  I  could  do  for  you  consistently  with  my  honest  con- 
V  V  victions  of  public  duty,  I  have  done.  No  friend  of  mine  has 
ever  accused  me  of  '  not  remembering  friends,'  except  when  he  found  he 
could  not  promote  some  purely  personal  end  through  me,  in  disregard  of 
what  I  honestly  believed  public  duty  to  require.  Nobody  can  say  that  I 
have  preferred  my  own  interests  to  my  friends,  or  that  I  ever  declined  any 
service  to  them,  except  when  I  felt  I  must. 

u  I  had  not  thought,  and  do  not  now  think,  that  under  the  circum 
stances  of  the  country,  as  they  exist,  I  ought  to  recommend  you  for  ap 
pointment  as  collector.  What  I  feel  I  ought  not  to  do,  I  shall  not  do.  I 
cannot  see  wherein  this  is  unjust  to  you,  or  inconsistent  with  a  sincere 
regard  for  you,  and  a  sincere  wish  to  serve  you.  If  you  do,  I  cannot 
help  it." 

To  John  Roberts,  Esq. 

"  May  21, 1861. 

"  ....  In  making  appointments,  my  rule  always  has  been  to  give  the 
preference  to  political  friends,  except  in  cases  where  peculiar  fitness  and 

1  For  obvious  reasons  the  name  of  the  gentleman  to  whom  this  letter  is  ad 
dressed  is  omitted. 


LETTERS  AND  EXTRACTS.  275 

talents  made  the  preference  of  a  political  opponent  a  public  duty.  In 
selecting  among  political  friends,  I  have  ever  aimed  to  get  the  right  man 
in  the  right  place,  without  much  reference  to  personal  consequences  to 
myself.  Of  course,  I  like  as  much  as  any  man  to  favor  personal  friends, 
but  I  have  never  thought  it  right  to  appoint  a  man  to  office  merely  because 
he  was  such,  without  a  careful  consideration  of  his  qualifications  for  the 
place.  I  have  ever  held  my  country  as  my  best  friend,  and  value  those 
friends  most  who  serve  her  most  faithfully.  Is  there  any  thing  blame 
worthy  in  all  this  ? " 

To  tJie  Eon.  Milton  Sutliffe,  Warren,  Ohio. 

"  June  10, 1861. 

"  .  .  .  .  My  time  is  so  entirely  occupied  that  it  is  next  to  impossible 
for  me  to  take  any  part  in  the  political  organization  of  our  State.  If  ours 
were  the  Democratic  party  instead  of  a  Republican  party,  it  would  move 
straight  forward,  announcing  its  own  principles  and  supporting  its  own 
candidates,  claiming  the  support  of  members  of  other  parties  on  patriotic 
grounds,  and  giving  to  such  members  as  should  accord  that  support  just 
consideration.  If  a  spirit  like  this  could  be  infused  into  the  Republican 
party,  no  Union  party  would  be  necessary,  and  no  mere  Union  party  could 
be  successfully  organized.  Under  the  actually  existing  circumstances  in 
Ohio,  imperfectly  known  as  they  must  be  to  me,  I  must  leave  to  our  friends 
on  the  spot  the  task  and  responsibility  of  organization.  ...  A  Republican 
Convention  and  Republican  nominations,  giving  recognition  among  the 
nominees  to  the  patriotic  Democratic  element  which  sustains  the  Adminis 
tration  in  its  present  position,  are  best." 

To  Hiram  Barney,  Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  York. 

"  July  20, 1861. 

"  .  .  .  .  You  know  my  views — the  public  first,  our  friends  next.  So 
far  as  preferences  can  be  legitimately  given  so  as  to  aid  those  who,  at  con 
siderable  sacrifice  of  time,  labor,  and  money,  are  engaged  in  upholding 
the  principles  we  all  deem  vitally  important  to  the  welfare  of  the  country, 
I  think  it  a  clear  political  duty  that  they  should  be  given.  But  no  public 
interest  should  be  sacrificed,  no  public  duty  should  be  neglected,  for  any 
personal  or  party  considerations.  .  .  ." 

To  General  John  C.  Fremont. 

"August  4, 1861. 

"  ....  I  had  before  responded  promptly,  though,  in  the  present  con 
dition  of  the  Treasury,  not  without  difficulty,  to  your  calls  for -money. 
The  energy  you  are  displaying  is  admirable,  and  excites  the  best  hopes  of 
the  future  fulfillment.  I  am  very  sanguine.  Let  me,  however,  take  the 
privilege  of  a  friend,  as  well  as  perform  the  duty  of  a  £ecretar  <  f  the 


276  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

Treasury,  in  urging  you  not  to  allow  the  pressure  of  your  other  cares  to 
withdraw  your  attention  from  the  expenditures  of  the  army  under  your 
command  and  in  your  department.  This  war  must  necessarily  be  an  ex 
pensive  war,  and  there  is  great  danger  that,  after  a  brief  period,  the 
people,  in  view  of  the  magnitude  of  the  burdens  it  is  likely  to  entail,  will 
refuse  their  support  to  the  measures  necessary  for  its  vigorous  prosecution. 
Already,  the  disgust  caused  by  fraud  or  exorbitance  in  contracts,  and  by 
the  improvidence  of  quartermasters  and  commissaries,  is  beginning  to  show 
itself.  What  is  needed  is,  to  satisfy  the  people  that  neither  time  nor 
means  will  be  needlessly  wasted.  They  ask  prompt  and  vigorous  action, 
and  all  practicable  economy.  .  .  ." 

To  N.  D.  Pott&r,  Esq.,  Cincinnati. 

"  ....  I  have  always  urged  action — accepting  every  man  who  could 
be  put  to  real  service,  and  expending  every  dollar  for  which  a  dollar's 
worth  could  be  shown  in  results.  I  never  have  wanted  paper  regiments 
nor  paper  colonels,  and  I  don't  want  them  now.  Active  men  and  useful 
employment  of  means  are  what  we  need.  .  .  ." 

To  the  Hon.  Garrett  Davis,  of  Kentucky. 

uAuffU9t24,l86l. 

"  .  .  .  .  Let  me  assure  you  that  the  confidence  you  express  in  me 
moves  me  deeply.  That  I  have  been  much  misunderstood  is  not  at  all 
surprising.  It  has  not  been  easy  to  distinguish  between  constitutional  op 
position  to  that  slave-power  which  struck  at  Clay,  and  struck  down  Ben- 
ton,  and  now  organizes  rebellion,  and  that  abolitionism  which  insisted  on 
immediate  and  unconditional  emancipation,  without  much  regard  to 
means  or  consequences.  I  have  wished  to  see  popular  government  vindi 
cate  and  recommend  itself  by  its  demonstrated  capacity  to  probe  and 
redress  so  great  an  evil  as  slavery — first,  by  the  constitutional  action  of 
the  national  Government  within  its  appropriate  sphere,  and  then  by  the 
unconstrained  action  of  the  States  within  their  several  jurisdictions.  I  do 
not  absolutely  despair  of  the  accomplishment  of  that  wish ;  though  I 
cannot  shut  my  eyes  to  the  possibility  that,  as  extremes  often  meet,  so 
now  the  madness  of  slavery  propagandism,  organized  in  rebellion,  is 
likely  to  accomplish  the  purposes  of  abolitionism,  pure  and  simple. 

"  But  enough  of  this ;  yet  rest  assured  of  one  thing.  If  I  ever  enter 
tained  an  unfriendly  thought  toward  Kentucky  or  Kentuckians,  the  wise 
and  noble  conduct  of  those  who  have  brought  her  thus  far  safely  through 
the  fever  of  the  time,  loyal  to  the  Union,  and  faithful  to  the  glorious  old 
flag  we  all  so  dearly  love,  would  have  banished  that  thought,  and  left  no 
sentiment  in  my  heart  save  one  of  fervent  affection  for  the  men  who  have 
accomplished  this  great  work,  prompting  me  to  zealous  efforts  to  fulfill 
all  their  wishes,  so  far  as  my  ability  allows.  .  .  ." 


LETTERS  AND  EXTRACTS.  277 

To  August  Belmont,  New  York. 

"September  13, 1861. 

"  ....  I  am  obliged  for  your  letter  of  the  15th  August.  It  is  much 
to  be  regretted  that  such  a  statesman  as  Palmerston  should  take  such  lim 
ited  views  of  the  American  question  as  were  indicated  in  the  conversation 
with  you.  Had  England  manifested  a  national  sympathy  with  the  United 
States  in  the  present  rebellion,  the  growing  friendship  of  the  Americans 
for  the  British  branch  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  family,  stimulated  by  the  visit 
of  the  Prince,  would  have  ripened,  I  think,  into  permanent  attachment 
and  concord.  What  Providence  will  bring  forth  out  of  the  unfortunate 
alienation,  occasioned  by  the  course  of  the  British  Government,  it  is  diffi 
cult  now  to  foresee.  It  is  the  part  of  wise  statesmanship,  however,  to 
mitigate — not  to  stimulate — the  exasperation. 

"  .  .  .  .  So  far  my  negotiations  and  arrangements  for  money  have  been 
very  fair  successes.  The  national  loan,  in  spite  of  all  the  disadvantages  of 
our  circumstances,  is  working  well.  If  I  had  an  Emperor  Napoleon  to 
sustain  me,  and  subordinates  held  sufficiently  responsible  throughout  the 
country  to  carry  out  my  plans,  the  loan  would  be  taken  in  this  country 
with  as  much  empressement  as  in  France.  But  think  of  the  necessity  of 
selecting,  appointing,  and  taking  bonds  from  hundreds  of  agents  for  sub 
scription,  and  that,  too,  with  most  inadequate  means  of  information  as  to 
character,  adaptedness,  and  responsibility  1  I  have,  however,  made  ap 
pointments  in  all  the  States  which  remain  loyal,  including  Virginia  and 
Kentucky,  except  Iowa,  Minnesota,  Kansas,  and  Oregon.  I  shall  make 
appointments  also  in  these,  more  for  the  name  of  doing  it  than  from 
expectation  of  considerable  returns.  Subscriptions  come  in  quite  satis 
factorily.  My  impression  is  that  the  associated  banks  will  be  so  far 
reimbursed  the  first  fifty  millions  taken  by  them  that  they  will  be  able  to 
advance  the  next  fifty  millions  without  difficulty.  Indeed,  I  am  confident 
that,  if  expenditure  can  be  restricted  within  reasonable  limits,  the  whole 
sums  needed  can  be  supplied  in  the  country.  Under  these  circumstances, 
the  condition  of  the  foreign  market  possesses  less  interest  than  it  would  in 
a  different  condition  of  affairs.  Still,  I  should  be  strongly  inclined  to  take 
ten,  or  even  twenty,  millions  sterling  foreign  capital,  if  it  could  be  had 
without  solicitation  at  say  six  per  cent.  .  .  /' 

« 

To  Hon.  Simeon  Nash,  Gallipolis,  Ohio. 

"September  26,1861. 

u  ....  Is  it  your  opinion  that  the  best  way  to  serve  the  country  is  to 
disregard  the  laws  without  a  justifying  emergency  ?  When  Congress  had 
the  distinct  question  of  confiscating  the  property  of  rebels,  and  emancipat 
ing  the  slaves,  under  consideration,  at  a  session  held  only  two  months  ago, 
and  passed  an  act  limiting  that  confiscation  and  emancipation  to  property 
and  slaves  actually  employed  in  the  rebellion,  or  provided  for  it,  do  you 
think  that  the  President,  or  a  commanding  general,  has  a  right  to  disre- 


278  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

gard  the  decision  of  Congress  thus  distinctly  made  ?  Assuming  such  dis 
regard,  how  remote  do  you  think  we  would  be  from  a  military  despotism  ? 
If  a  commanding  general  evinces  this  disregard,  and  if  the  President  dis 
approves  it,  shall  there  be  a  party  for  the  general  and  against  the  Presi 
dent  ?  Is  a  commanding  general,  who,  by  proclamation,  gives  occasion  for 
such  a  division,  the  embodiment  of  patriotism  ? 

"  I  have  seen  no  suggestions  or  suspicions  that  aspirations  for  the  presi 
dency  influenced  the  conduct  of  public  men  in  this  crisis,  which  have  not 
emanated  from  St.  Louis.  Those  who  impute  such  motives  are  not  the 
least  likely  to  be  influenced  by  them. 

"  Whether  we  shall  be  forced  to  a  depreciated  currency,  or  not,  cannot 
now  be  foreseen.  It  will  come  when  the  Government  receives  the  paper  of 
the  banks,  for  then  it  will  have  to  pay  in  such  paper.  The  result  will  be 
the  disappearance  of  coin,  and  universal  suspension.  So  long  as  the  Gov 
ernment  is  able  to  confine  its  transactions  to  coin,  and  its  own  notes  redeem 
able  in  coin,  we  shall  be  comparatively  safe.  At  any  rate,  until  Congress 
shall  decide  otherwise,  I  must  execute  the  law  as  it  exists,  and  receive  and 
pay  out  only  coin  and  Government  notes.  In  so  doing,  I  shall  endeavor 
to  occasion  as  little  inconvenience  as  possible. 

"  If  proof  can  be  furnished  that  any  officers  of  my  department  have 
sold  gold  for  paper,  and  then  paid  the  paper  for  dues,  they  shall  be  promptly 
dismissed.  For  frauds  in  the  other  departments  I, am  not  responsible,  be 
yond  the  use  of  my  best  endeavors  to  induce  energetic  repression.  These 
endeavors  I  have  constantly  used,  and  shall  continue  to  do  so.  I  shall  call 
the  attention  of  the  War  Department  particularly  to  your  statement  in  re 
lation  to  the  transportation  of  soldiers,  where  you  say  the  Government 
paid  $3,  while  the  boat  got  but  $1.50.  .  .  ." 


To  John  C.  Hamilton,  New  York. 

"  October  1, 1861. 

"  .  .  .  .  You  see  whom  I  would  fain  emulate  if  I  might.  When  the 
engraver  desired  to  place  my  face  on  thejives  of  the  United  States  notes, 
I  said :  '  No  ;  let  the  people  renew  their  recollection  of  the  first  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury.'  So  I  have  been  instrumental  in  giving  renewed  cur 
rency  to  features  whose  spirit  animates,  as  your  own  great  work  shows,  our 
Constitution,  our  institutions,  and  our  history." 

To  Joseph  Medill,  of  Chicago. 

"  October  16, 1861. 

"  ....  It  has  been  plain  to  me  from  the  beginning  that  gold-notes  of 
the  United  States,  promptly  and  honestly  redeemed,  would  have  little 
chance  in  competition  with  notes  of  less  value,  so  long  as  these  less  valu 
able  notes  should  be  tolerated  by  the  people  as  currency.  For  this  reason, 
and  also  because  I  thought  that  bank  circulation,  paying  no  interest, 


LETTERS  AND  EXTRACTS.  279 

should  at  least  contribute  something  to  the  national  burdens,  I  recom 
mended  to  Congress,  in  my  report,  an  internal  duty  on  bank-notes.  A 
majority  in  Congress  were,  I  think,  in  favor  of  the  tax  ;  but  some  Repre 
sentatives  of  great  influence,  largely  interested  in  banking  institutions,  ob 
jected,  and  their  objections  prevailed. 

"The  subject  must  necessarily  attract  the  attention  of  the  country. 

"  For  myself,  I  never  have  entertained  a  doubt  that  it  was  the  duty  of 
the  General  Government  to  furnish  a  national  currency.  Its  neglect  of  this 
duty  has  cost  the  people  as  much  as  this  war  will  cost  them.  It  must  now 
be  performed,  not  merely  as  a  duty,  but  as  a  matter  of  necessary  policy." 

To  R.  B.  Warden,  of  Ohio. 

"  November  6, 18G1. 

"  .  .  .  .  Let  me  thank  you  for  your  admirable  article.  It  teaches  a 
necessary  lesson.  "We  must  imitate  the  grand  patience  of  God ;  yet,  in 
doing  so,  let  us  not  shrink  from  the  imitation  of  his  justice  and  constant 
energy  also." 

To  Hon.  Simon  Cameron,  Secretary  of  War. 

"JVcwwi&er  27,1861. 

"  .  .  .  .  The  period  has  arrived  when  it  becomes  my  duty,  as  the 
financial  minister  of  the  Administration,  to  lay  before  Congress  and  the 
country  a  statement  of  our  financial  condition.  In  this  statement,  as  you 
are  aware,  I  must  submit  plans  to  Congress  for  meeting  any  deficiency  in 
revenues  consequent  upon  excessive  expenditures. 

"  At  the  meeting  of  Congress,  at  the  extra  session  in  July,  with  a  full 
knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  Administration  of  the- magnitude  of  the  re 
bellion,  the  requirements  of  the  War  Department  indicated  an  expenditure 
upon  the  basis  of  250,000  men.  Congress  promptly  responded,  by  making 
the  required  appropriations,  coupled  with  discretionary  authority  con 
ferred  upon  the  President  for  the  raising  of  500,000  men,  if  in  his  judg 
ment  such  numbers  would  be  required. 

"  Inasmuch  as  250,000  men  were  all  that  were  deemed  requisite  to  meet 
any  force  that  might  be  sent  against  us  (having,  in  addition  thereto,  an 
almost  unrestricted  authority  to  increase  the  naval  power),  the  appropria 
tions  made  for  carrying  on  the  war  were  restricted  to  the  sums  asked  for 
upon  that  basis,  and  authority  was  given  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
to  negotiate  loans  equal  to  any  supposed  deficiency  in  the  revenues.  Keep 
ing  constantly  in  view  the  restrictions  of  law  by  which  I  have  been  sur 
rounded,  and  the  large  discretion  reposed  by  Congress  in  the  President,  I 
have  from  time  to  time,  as  you  are  well  aware,  urged  upon  the  various 
members  of  the  Administration  the  absolute  necessity  for  a  more  system 
atic  exercise  of  the  discretion  given  in  calling  additional  troops  into  the 
field  beyond  the  numbers  provided  for  in  the  appropriations,  and  that  such 
excess  of  numbers  should  only  be  called  for  after  a  clearly-defined  neces- 


280  ^IFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

sity  was  shown.     In  my  judgment,  the  assumption  of  responsibility,  -with 
out  warrant  of  law,  should  only  be  exercised  in  the  direst  emergency.  .  . 

"  This  communication  is  submitted  to  you  in  consequence  of  the  diffi 
culties  which  present  themselves  in  raising  the  enormous  sums  which  the 
estimates  of  the  War  Department  in  their  present  form  would  require. 
There  appears  to  be  by  these  estimates,  received  on  Saturday  last,  700,000 
troops  in  the  field,  and  100,000  employe's  in  addition.  The  full  discretion 
given  to  the  President  was  exhausted  when  500,000  men  were  called  out. 
Where  these  700,000  men  are,  can  any  one  tell  ?  The  Armies  of  the  Poto 
mac,  of  Western  Virginia,  of  Kentucky,  and  of  Missouri,  do  not  in  all 
embrace  more  than  half  this  number. 

"  I  beg  you  to  bear  in  mind  that  I  have  repeatedly  and  earnestly  con 
demned  the  loose  and  unsystematic  manner  in  which  authority  has  been 
given  to  irresponsible  individuals,  all  over  the  country,  to  raise  troops,  ex 
pend  money,  and  involve  the  Government  in  debt.  The  reason  for  giving 
such  authority,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain,  has  been  principally 
the  desire  to  gratify  applicants,  without  regard  to  any  specific  purposes  to 
which  the  troops  so  raised  were  to  be  devoted.  I  have  at  all  times,  and 
upon  all  proper  occasions,  protested  against  giving  military  commissions 
to  men  known  and  acknowledged  to  be  ignorant  of  military  affairs.  I 
have  repeatedly  urged  that  all  the  action  of  the  President  and  the  War 
Department  should  be  made  matters  of  record,  and  that  the  aggregate  of 
authorities  given  should  be  kept  at  least  within  the  limit  of  the  very 
liberal  discretion  confided  in  the  President.  .  .  . 

"  The  amount  of  money  which  it  is  proposed  to  submit  to  Congress  as 
necessary  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  Government  for  the  remainder  of 
the  present  and  for  the  next  fiscal  year,  in  addition  to  the  existing  public 
debt,  is  about  $1,050,000,000.  The  receipts  from  customs,  revenues  and  direct 
taxes,  under  present  laws,  can  hardly  exceed  $120,000,000,  leaving  $930,000,- 
000  to  be  provided  for  by  loans.  I  feel  that  I  must  decline  to  submit  esti 
mates  based  upon  mere  conjecture,  the  aggregate  of  which  will,  in  the 
absence,  comparatively,  of  results,  carry  conviction  to  the  minds  of  the 
people  of  an  entire  want  of  system  in  the  management  of  our  military 
affairs.  .  .  .  The  want  of  success  of  our  armies,  and  the  difficulties  of  our 
financial  operations,  have  not  been  in  consequence  of  a  want  or  excess 
of  men,  but  for  want  of  systematic  administration.  If  the  lack  of  econ 
omy,  and  the  absence  of  accountability,  are  allowed  to  prevail  in  the 
future  as  in  the  past,  bankruptcy,  and  the  success  of  the  rebellion,  will  be 
necessary  consequences.  ...  It  is  not  and  has  not  been  my  purpose  to  ob 
ject  in  any  manner  to  the  raising  of  sufficient  troops  and  the  furnishing 
of  needed  supplies  ;  but  I  have  heretofore  objected,  and  do  now  object,  to 
rendering  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States  liable  for  one  thousand  mill 
ions  of  dollars,  in  addition  to  already  existing  debt,  when  by  proper 
system  and  proper  economy  the  same  results  can  be  attained  by  an  expen 
diture  of  half  the  sum. 


LETTERS  AND  EXTRACTS.  281 

"  I  have,  therefore,  deemed  it  my  duty  to  return  the  estimates  sub 
mitted  by  the  War  Department,  and  to  decline  to  submit  them,  until  they 
are  subjected  to  a  more  rigid  scrutiny,  and  a  reasonably  satisfactory  expla 
nation  given  for  exceeding  the  discretionary  authority  given  by  Congress. 

"  The  people,  individually  and  collectively,  have  generously  responded 
to  every  demand  of  the  Government,  trusting  to  its  integrity  and  ability 
fully  to  protect  them  and  their  interests.  They  will,  I  hope,  hold  us  all 
to  a  rigid  accountability  for  our  exercise  of  the  authority  given  to  us.  I 
cannot  consent,  by  the  transmission  of  such  estimates  as  those  presented 
to  me,  to  seem  to  sanction  and  participate  in  a  disregard  of  the  qualities 
they  justly  demand  of  us." 


To  Murat  Halstead,  Cincinnati. 

"  December  25, 1861. 

" .  .  .  .  You  are  unjust  to  Cameron,  and  I  am  bound  as  a  man  of  honor 
to  say  so.  I  haVe  seen  him  closely  as  most  men  here,  and  I  am  sure  he 
has  acted  honorably  and  faithfully  and  patriotically.  If  he  had  been  left 
to  administer  his  own  department,  without  interference  and  with  only  the 
support  and  aid  which  he  himself  desired,  I  am  confident  there  would 
have  been  comparatively  little  complaint.  He  challenges  investigation  of 
all  his  transactions  on  the  score  of  corruption,  and  may  do  so,  I  believe, 
with  entire  safety. 

"  This  I  say  of  him  because  I  think  I  ought.  He  is  fiercely  assailed, 
and  I  should  think  myself  mean  if  I  shrunk  from  saying  what  I  believe 
to  be  true,  because  of  the  clamor.  If  he  were  my  enemy  I  ought  to  speak 
the  truth  in  his  behalf,  and  the  obligation  is  not  the  less  imperative,  be 
cause  he,  more  than  any  other  man  here,  has  always  acted  toward  me  the 
part  of  a  frank,  manly,  and  generous  friend." 


CHAPTEK    XXXI. 

CONDITION     OF    THE     STATE    BANKS     IN     1861 CHARACTER     OF    THE 

STATE -BANK    CIRCULATION   AT   THE    DATE BRIEF    ACCOUNT   OF 

THE  STATE  BANKS  (NOTE) MR.  CHASE  RECOMMENDS  THE  NA 
TIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM EXTRACTS  FROM  HIS  REPORT,  DE 
CEMBER,  1861 NATIONAL  BANKING  BILL  INTRODUCED  IN  HOUSE 

OF   REPRESENTATIVES,    BY   MR.    HOOPER,    OF   MASSACHUSETTS. 

THE  principal  currency  of  the  country  in  1861,  at  the  be 
ginning  of  the  war,  was  a  paper  one  supplied  by  sixteen 
hundred  banks  organized  and  doing  business  under  as  many  dif 
ferent  laws  as  there  were  States,  and  in  some  particulars  at  least 
differing  widely.  Their  aggregated  capitals  amounted  to  four 
hundred  and  thirty  millions  of  dollars ;  their  circulation  was  two 
hundred  and  ten  millions ;  their  deposits  two  hundred  and  fifty- 
eight  millions,  and  their  other  liabilities  about  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  millions.  Total,  one  thousand  and  fifteen  millions 
of  dollars.  Their  resources  were :  Loans  and  discounts,  six 
hundred  and  ninety-six  millions;  cash,  eighty-seven  millions 
($87,674,507)  ;  stocks,  seventy-four  millions  ;  and  other  property 
sufficient  to  make  up  the  required  aggregate  of  one  thousand 
and  fifteen  millions  of  dollars. 

Their  instant  liabilities — circulation,  deposits,  and  dues  to 
other  banks — were  five  hundred  and  twenty  millions  of  dollars. 
Their  means,  immediately  available,  were  one  hundred  and 
ninety-seven  millions — comprised  in  cash,  cash  items,  circulating 
notes,  and  debts  due  from  other  banks. 

Of  the  whole  banking  capital  about  one  hundred  and  ten 
millions  were  in  the  seceding  States,  and  fifty  millions  of  the 


CHARACTER  OF  STATE-BANK  CIRCULATION.  £83 


• 


circulation.  Of  the  deposits  about  forty  millions  were  held  by 
the  same  banks.  Of  the  loans  and  discounts  five  hundred  and 
fifty  millions  were  those  of  the  banks  in  the  adhering  States, 
and  they  held  more  than  seventy  millions  of  the  whole  supply 
of  cash. 

The  cash  held  by  the  national  Government  in  the  Treasury 
and  depositories  was  $3,600,000 ;  this,  with  that  held  by  the 
banks,  made  a  total  of  ninety-one  millions,  and  formed  the  basis 
of  the  currency. 

"What  the  whole  sum  of  the  coin  in  the  country  was  at  that 
time  is  of  course  conjectural ;  it  was  variously  stated,  the  esti 
mates  ranging  from  $100,000,000  to  $700,000,000.  The  ex 
treme  probability  is  that  it  did  not  exceed  two  hundred  mill 
ions  ;  *  a  safer  estimate  would  no  doubt  be  $150,000,000.  De 
ducting  the  sum  held  by  the  Government  and  the  banks,  and 
adding  the  remainder  (estimating  the  whole  sum  at  $200,000,000) 
to  the  paper  circulation,  and  the  total  currency  of  the  country 
was  three  hundred  and  eleven  millions  of  dollars. 

It  was  early  realized  that  the  expenditures  of  the  war  were 
certain  to  be  very  large ;  Congress,  at  its  extra  session  in  July, 
1861,  manifested  a  partial  sense  of  their  magnitude  by  voting 
for  the  support  of  the  Government  four  hundred  millions  of  dol 
lars — a  sum  almost  equivalent  to  the  whole  banking  capital  of 
the  country,  and  many  millions  more  than  that  of  the  banks  in 
the  Federal  States.  The  private  discounts  of  these  banks,  too, 
long  before  the  rebellion  began,  were  largely  in  excess  of  their 
capital. 

It  is  not  impossible  that  these  State  institutions  might  have 
been  useful  as  auxiliaries  to  the  financial  measures  of  the  Gov 
ernment,  but,  as  a  chief  reliance  in  the  varying  fortunes  of  a 
great  war,  they  were  clearly  inadequate.  They  were  located  at 
widely-separated  places ;  they  were  managed  by  men  of  every 
shade  of  political  opinions ;  their  capitals  varied  largely ;  they 
were  bound  by  no  common  public  purpose  and  were  subject  to 
no  common  direction — indeed,  they  responded  very  doubtfully 

1  This  is  the  estimate  of  Mr.  George  Walker.  Mr.  Chase  estimated  it  at 
$210,000,000.  Secretary  McCulloch  estimated  it  at  $100,000,000,  and  there 
were  "financiers"  who  fixed  the  sum  at  $500,000,000  to  $700,000,000.  If  any 
tiling,  $150,000,000  was  excessive. 


284  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

l 

even  to  the  current  business,  as  was  testified  by  the  frequent 
convulsions  which  disturbed  the  commerce  and  industry  of  the 
country  in  its  length  and  breadth.  The  circulation  they  furnished 
was  unreliable ;  while  the  credit  of  some  of  the  banks  was  good, 
that  of  others  was  doubtful,  and  in  some  cases  bad.  It  was  at 
all  tunes  inconvenient,  because  so  various  in  feature  as  to  require 
constant  reference  to  "  The  Detector  "  to  guard  against  loss  by 
counterfeits ;  and  most  of  it  was  subject  to  greater  or  less  dis 
counts  as  it  was  near  or  far  from  the  place  of  issue.  Accord 
ing  to  a  statement  made  by  Mr.  Benton  in  the  United  States 
Senate  in  1836,  the  number  of  banks  then  doing  business  in  the 
several  States  of  the  Union  and  the  District  of  Columbia,  was 
about  750  ;  and  there  were  in  circulation  in  June  of  that  year 
818  counterfeits,  of  which  756  were  of  $10  and  under,  and  62 
of  $20  and  upward.  There  were  in  circulation  at  the  same  time 
181  counterfeits  of  the  notes  of  the  United  States  Bank  and  its 
branches — total  counterfeits,  991 ;  and  these  were  exclusive  of 
broken-bank  notes,  of  imitations  and  alterations.  Time  worked 
no  improvement ;  but  rather,  the  evil  increased  with  the  growth 
of  the  country.  Official  reports  in  eighteen  different  States  in 
1860  showed  140  banks  broken,  234  closed,  and  131  worthless. 
Such  was  the  condition  of  505  banks ;  the  whole  number  in  the 
eighteen  States  being  1,231.  Between  1856  and  1862  the  notes 
of  over  1,200  banks  were  counterfeited  or  altered.  There  were 
in  existence  in  the  latter  year  over  3,000  kinds  of  altered  notes ; 
1,700  varieties  of  spurious  notes;  460  varieties  of  imitations; 
over  700  of  other  kinds — there  being  more  than  seven  thousand 
various  kinds  of  genuine  bills  in  circulation,  some  executed  by 
good  artists  and  others  indifferently.  The  following  table  is  from 
reliable  data  as  to  the  two  years  1856  and  1862 : 

1856.  1S62. 

Whole  number  of  banks 1,409  1,500 

Number  whose  notes  were  not  counterfeited 463  253 

Number  of  kinds  of  imitations 1,462  1,861 

Number  of  kinds  of  alterations 1,119  3,039 

Number  of  kinds  of  spurious 224  1,685 

It  is  almost  impossible  to  realize,  after  our  experience  with 
the  "  war  currency,"  how  the  American  people — impatient  and 
critical — bore  so  long  with  a  circul  \tion  requiring  such  constant 


THE   STATE-BANK  SYSTEM.  285 

watchfulness,  and  subjecting  them  to  so  much  loss  both  of  time 
and  money,  as  did  that  of  the  State  banks.1 

In  December,  1861,  in  his  first  annual  report  to  Congress, 
Mr.  Chase  called  attention  to  the  character  of  these  institutions 

1  A  writer  in  the  National  Quarterly  Review  for  June,  1865,  gives  the  following 
succinct  sketch  of  the  State-bank  system.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  of  sufficient  interest 
and  importance  to  be  printed  at  this  place  in  this  book : 

"In  1790  there  were  but  four  banks  in  the  Union,  having  an  aggregate  capital 
of  $1,950,000;  in  1804  there  were  fifty-nine  banks  in  operation,  with  an  aggregate 
capital  of  $39,500,000. 

"  It  is  believed  that  but  a  small  part  of  the  capital  of  the  State  banks  was  paid 
up.  The  United  States  Bank  was  established  hi  1791,  with  a  capital  of  $10,000,000, 
and  its  paid-up  capital  probably  exceeded  that  of  all  the  State  banks  together.  It  is 
known,  alsor  that  so  lately  as  the  year  1800  coin  constituted  the  bulk  of  the  cur- 
rency,  bank-notes  being  rarely  seen  south  of  the  Potomac  or  north  of  the  Allegha- 
nies. 

"  In  the  year  1808  the  estimated  specie  in  the  country  exceeded  the  amount  of 
bank-notes  in  circulation.  The  return  made  to  the  Treasury  by  the  United  States 
Bank  in  that  year  gave  its  specie  at  $15,300,000,  its  circulating  notes  at  $4,787,000 ; 
and  another  return  made  in  1810  did  not  materially  vary  in  these  respects.  But  the 
policy  of  the  New  England  banks  for  some  time  previous  to  1808  was  widely  dif 
ferent.  They  commenced  the  expansion  of  their  issues  probably  in  1803,  and  pushed 
it  to  the  extreme  limit  of  their  credit,  so  that  in  1808  and  1809  a  grand  explosion 
occurred,  by  which  most  of  them  were  damaged  and  some  of  them  totally  destroyed. 

"The  abundance  of  specie  existing  before  the  year  1808  is  accounted  for  by  the 
long  continuance  of  the  wars  in  Europe  between  the  maritime  nations,  which  threw 
the  carrying  trade  of  the  South  American  mines  into  our  hands.  In  that  year  Napo 
leon  invaded  Spain ;  England  became  her  ally  and  protector,  and  the  long-interrupted 
direct  trade  between  England  and  the  Spanish  colonies  in  America  was  resumed. 
At  the  same  time  our  embargo  law,  followed  by  the  act  of  non-intercourse,  and  finally 
by  war  with  England,  from  June,  1812,  till  December,  1814,  prevented  the  export  of 
United  States  produce  to  foreign  countries,  and  drained  away  the  precious  metals 
after  the  accidental  supply  had  been  cut  off.  The  resulting  scarcity  of  coin,  and  the 
increased  demand  for  currency  required  by  the  exigencies  of  the  war,  were,  as  is  well 
known,  supplied  by  an  excessive  issue  of  bank-notes,  which  was  followed  by  a  sus 
pension  of  specie  payments  by  all  the  banks  south  of  New  England  in  September, 
1814.  The  check  of  redemption  removed,  the  expansion  went  on,  and  seems  only 
to  have  been  accelerated  by  the  proclamation  of  peace  in  February,  1815.  The  bank 
issues,  estimated  at  thirty  millions  in  1811,  before  the  war,  and  at  forty-seven  mill 
ions  about  the  time  of  the  general  suspension  of  specie  payments,  are  put  by  Mr. 
Gallatin  at  seventy  millions  in  1816,  and  by  Mr.  Crawford,  with  probably  a  close  ap 
proximation  to  the  truth,  at  ninety-nine  millions. 

"  An  inflation  so  prodigious  occurring  in  time  of  peace  and  the  consequently  di 
minished  rapidity  of  business  circulation  were  necessarily  followed  by  a  correspond 
ingly  heavy  relapse.  A  population  of  not  above  nine  millions,  with  a  paper  currency 
of  eleven  dollars  per  capita  in  their  hands,  or  fully  double  the  amount  required  by 
the  condition  of  industry  and  trade,  the  whole  mass  resting  upon  a  specie  basis  of 


286  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

and  the  doubtfulness  of  their  right — under  the  Constitution — to 
issue  circulating  notes.  The  whole  of  that  circulation  was  a  loan 
without  interest  from  the  people  to  the  banks,  costing  the  latter 
nothing  but  the  expense  of  issue  and  redemption,  and  the  interest 

about  twenty  millions,  or  one  dollar  for  the  redemption  of  five,  could  not  escape  a 
revulsion  alike  extensive  and  disastrous.  The  consequence  was  the  most  appalling 
distress  which  the  country  had  ever  seen,  and  which  even  to  this  day  is  without  a 
parallel.  The  root  of  the  evil  was  in  the  attempt  of  the  Government  to  carry  on  an 
expensive  war  by  loans  of  bank-credits  and  bank-notes,  thereby  making  irredeemable 
paper  a  national  currency,  assisting  in  its  circulation  and  encouraging  its  expansion. 
A  national  currency,  such  as  our  greenbacks  or  the  notes  of  the  national  banks,  based 
upon  United  States  bonds,  rests  upon  the  faith  and  resources  of  the  nation ;  and, 
however  much  it  may  be  temporarily  depreciated,  is  yet  redeemable.  But  a  corpora 
tion  currency,  resting  only  upon  the  debts  of  bankrupt  borrowers,  is  utterly  baseless, 
and  its  total  excess  is  simply  worthless. 

"  The  fluctuations  in  the  amount  of  paper  currency  which  led  to  and  resulted 
from  the  great  revulsion  of  this  period,  according  to  the  estimates  of  Mr.  Crawford, 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  1820,  stood  thus  : 

"Bank-note  circulation  in  1811,                            $29,000,000 

"         "            "  "  1813,  $62,000,000  to     70,000,000 

"        "            "  "  1815,    99,000,000  to  110,000,000 

"         "             "  "  1819,    46,000,000  to     63,000,000 

"  Taking  the  lowest  figures  in  these  estimates  they  would  give  a  per  capita  circu 
lation  in  1811 — before  the  war — of  $3.87;  in  1813,  before  the  suspension  of  specie 
payments,  $7.72;  in  1815,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  $10.58;  in  1819,  immediately 
after  the  general  bank  crash,  $4.81.  But  it  is  well  known  that  during  the  year  1816 
the  banks  continued  to  issue  abundantly,  and  that  floods  of  unchartered  currency 
besides  were  poured  out  in  notes  of  all  denominations,  from  six  cents  up  to  five  and 
ten  dollars.  The  bank-note  reporters  of  the  time  give  lists  of  notes  in  circulation  by 
chartered  and  unchartered  companies  and  individuals  about  equally  numerous. 
After  the  20th  of  February,  1817,  Congress  prohibited  the  receipt  of  inconvertible 
paper  in  payment  of  public  dues.  About  the  middle  of  1818  the  contraction  began, 
and  at  the  end  of  1819  the  banks  had  settled  into  what  Niles's  Register  calls  '  a 
state  of  regularity ; '  meaning  that  the  survivors  had  reduced  their  circulation  to  such 
an  extent  that,  for  the  purpose  of  remittance,  their  notes  or  drafts  on  the  metropoli 
tan  banks  were  worth  a  fraction  more  than  silver  coin,  which  was  itself  very  scarce, 
owing  to  the  preparation  then  making  by  the  Bank  of  England,  and  the  imports  of 
specie  by  Austria  and  Prussia,  for  the  replacement  of  their  paper  currencies  with 
specie.  At  this  time  lands  in  the  interior  and  agricultural  products  were  for  sale  at 
one-third  the  price  they  commanded  when  the  unusual  indebtedness  of  the  people 
was  made,  and  at  half  the  prices  readily  obtained  in  1808-'10. 

"In  the  period  1820  to  1830  the  increase  of  banks  and  of  paper  money  was  not 
in  the  aggregate  considerable,  but  the  conduct  of  many  of  these  ungovernable  insti 
tutions  was  such  that  in  the  decade  several  ruinous  fluctuations  occurred  in  different 
districts  of  the  country.  We  have  no  statement  of  the  condition  of  the  banks  and 
the  amount  of  currency  afloat  during  this  term,  but  we  know  that  the  years  1826-'28 


BRIEF  ACCOUNT  OF  STATE  BANKS.  287 

on  the  specie  kept  for  the  latter  purpose.  He  suggested  the 
sound  policy  of  transferring  the  advantages  of  that  loan,  in  part 
at  least,  from  the  banks  representing  only  the  interests  of  the 
stockholders,  to  the  Government  representing  the  aggregate  in- 

were  marked  by  convulsions  of  the  banks  of  New  York,  Georgia,  South  Carolina, 
North  Carolina,  and  Rhode  Island,  -with  heavy  failures  among  the  manufacturers  of 
New  England,  with  wide-spread  distress,  insolvency,  and  litigation  all  over  the  coun 
try.  All  of  which  means  not,  perhaps,  excessive  issues  of  bank  currency,  but  a  general 
and  disastrous  disturbance  of  monetary  affairs,  which  neither  the  State  banks  nor 
the  United  States  Bank,  then  in  full  operation,  with  its  capital  of  thirty-five  millions 
and  its  credit  worth  still  more,  was  able  to  remedy. 

"Mr.  Gallatin  puts  the  circulation  of  1830  at  sixty-one  millions,  a  per  capita 
average  of  $4.74,  something  too  small,  perhaps,  for  the  demands  of  business ;  but 
the  paper  money  of  this  date  was  helped  by  a  considerable  excess  of  imports  over 
the  exports  of  specie  in  the  two  preceding  years,  amounting  to  above  eight  and  a  half 
millions  of  dollars ;  the  great  increase  of  the  home  supply  of  manufactures,  protected 
by  the  high  tariff  of  1828,  and  the  reduction  of  the  exports  of  specie  to  China  and  the 
East  Indies  by  the  use  of  bills  drawn  by  the  United  States  Bank  on  England  for  the  ac 
commodation  of  our  merchants,  which  temporarily  deferred  the  export  of  specie. 

"  But  in  the  ensuing  six  years  the  banks  went  wild  again.  Catching  the  earliest 
hopes  of  reviving  prosperity,  they  extended  their  issues  from  sixty-one  millions  in 
1830  to  one  hundred  and  forty-nine  millions  in  1837.  Their  specie,  in  the  mean 
time,  increased  but  sixteen  millions  (from  twenty-two  to  thirty-eight  millions).  The 
average  circulation  for  this  year  of  enormous  expansion  affords  $9.52  per  capita, 
while  that  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  in  the  same  year  stood  at  $6.47.  It  stood  at 
thirty-two  cents  per  head  above  that  of  England  and  Wales,  with  their  twofold  an 
nual  products  of  industry  at  that  date,  and  correspondingly  larger  requirements  of 
currency.  The  consequence  was  a  suspension  of  payments  by  all  the  banks,  includ 
ing  the  mammoth  United  States  Bank,  in  May,  1837,  as  if  by  common  consent. 
During  the  residue  of  the  year  specie  bore  a  premium  at  Philadelphia  of  various  rates 
up  to  twelve  per  cent.,  and  the  bank  paper  of  the  different  States  was  at  various  and 
fluctuating  rates  of  discount ;  in  some  instances  as  high  as  twenty  per  cent. — not  in 
specie,  but  in  the  paper  of  the  Philadelphia  banks. 

"  Favored  by  an  excess  of  imports  of  specie  over  exports  in  the  two  years  ending 
September  30,  1838,  amounting  to  nearly  twenty  millions,  the  banks  of  New  York 
and  New  England  resumed  specie  payments  in  May,  1838.  The  banks  of  Philadel 
phia  made  three  resumptions  and  as  many  suspensions  before  February,  1841,  and 
did  not  effectively  resume  until  March,  1842.  The  notes  of  the  banks  to  the  south 
and  west  of  New  York  were  at  various  rates  of  discount — one,  five,  ten,  fifteen,  and 
even  eighty  per  cent. ;  and  specie  at  various  rates  of  premium  up  to  fourteen  per 
cent.,  as  measured  in  Philadelphia,  which  was  at  the  time  inconvertible.  The  re 
action  of  this  monetary  crash  is  shown,  as  that  of  1819,  by  the  fact  that  the  circula 
tion,  which  amounted  to  one  hundred  and  forty-nine  millions  in  1837,  was  reduced 
in  1843  to  fifty-eight  millions — an  average  per  capita  of  the  population  of  $3.06  as 
against  $9.52  in  1837.  This  is  fluctuation  with  a  vengeance  ! 

"  The  next* general  explosion  of  our  paper-money  system  occurred  nine  years 
after  the  California  gold-mines  were  fairly  opened.  From  July  1,  1848,  to  July  1, 


288  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

terests  of  the  whole  people.  It  was  too  clear  to  be  disputed,  at 
any  rate,  that  under  the  constitutional  power  of  Congress  to  lay 
taxes,  to  regulate  commerce  and.  the  value  of  the  coin,  it  had 
ample  authority  to  control  the  credit  circulation.  The  time  had 

1857,  California  had  furnished  to  the  Mint  and  branch  mints  $383,873,100,  and  the 
mines  of  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Tennessee,  Alabama, 
and  New  Mexico  had  yielded  $4,514,469,  in  gold.  The  silver  of  domestic  production 
deposited  at  the  Mint  and  branches  amounted  to  $2,630,055,  making  together  a  grand 
total  of  $391,017,624.  The  total  silver  coinage  amounted  to  $33,621,148.  What 
part  of  this  sum  was  an  actual  addition  to  the  silver  in  circulation  we  do  not  now 
stop  to  determine.  According  to  the  custom-house  returns,  the  exports  of  com  and 
bullion  in  these  nine  years  exceeded  the  imports  $271,400,133.  Here  we  have  some 
basis  for  an  estimate  of  the  increase  of  specie  in  the  country  in  this  period.  The 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  December,  1857,  estimated  it  at  one  hundred  and  forty 
millions.  He  believed  the  amount  in  1849  to  be  one  hundred  and  twenty-nine  mill 
ions,  and  in  1857  two  hundred  and  sixty  millions.  The  data  given  would  afford  this 
sum,  if  to  the  gold  from  our  mines  we  add  twenty  millions  of  the  total  silver  coinage 
as  a  probable  addition  to  the  circulation,  and  assume  that  the  residue  was  but  the 
recoinage  of  foreign  silver  money  previously  making  part  of  our  currency.  This 
calculation,  however,  assumes  that  our  stock  of  coins  increases  or  decreases  annu 
ally,  as  the  amount  imported  and  received  from  our  own  mines  exceeds  or  falls  short 
of  the  amount  exported ;  and  it  further  assumes  that  the  gold  and  silver  brought  in 
by  immigrants  and  others  and  not  reported,  and  that  entering  overland  from  Mexico, 
would  balance  the  amounts  clandestinely  exported,  as  well  as  the  amount  consumed 
hi  manufactures  and  the  annual  loss  by  abrasion. 

"  But  if  the  increase  had  been  double  the  estimated  amount,  the  banks  would 
very  certainly  have  extended  their  issues  and  credits  in  proportion.  Their  reserve 
of  specie  had  increased  but  seventeen  millions,  and  they  had  added  one  hundred 
millions  to  the  one  hundred  and  fourteen  and  three-quarter  millions  of  their  circu 
lating  paper  out  in  1849,  and  expanded  their  loans  and  discounts  from  three  hundred 
and  thirty-two  and  a  third  millions  to  six  hundred  and  eighty-four  and  a  half  mill 
ions.  In  September  and  October  they  suspended  specie  payments,  and  in  about 
three  months  contracted  their  circulation  from  two  hundred  and  fifteen  to  one  hun 
dred  and  fifty-five  millions,  and  reduced  their  loans  to  five  hundred  and  eighty-three 
millions ;  a  reduction  of  the  former  of  twenty-eight  and  a  half  per  cent.,  which  waa 
followed  by  a  general  fall  of  prices  during  the  twelve  months  ensuing,  averaging 
twenty-five  per  cent.  The  solvent  banks  resumed  specie  payments  early  in  1858, 
after  creating  such  stringency  in  the  money  market  as  so  great  a  reduction  of  cur 
rency  and  bank  credits  must  necessarily  occasion.  Among  the  facts  which  marked 
the  revulsion  and  showed  its  extent  was  the  diminished  consumption  of  foreign  mer 
chandise.  In  the  twelve  months  ending  three  months  before  the  suspension,  the 
foreign  imports  entered  for  consumption  amounted  to  three  hundred  and  thirty-seven 
millions ;  in  the  twelve  months  immediately  succeeding,  they  fell  off  to  one  hundred 
and  ninety-three  millions — the  average  consumption  per  capita  falling  from  $11.81 
in  the  former  year  to  $6.57  in  the  latter,  a  reduction  of  over  forty-four  per  cent. 

"  Enough  has  been  said  to  exhibit  fully  the  fluctuations  of  our  bank  issues  in 
amount,  the  cost  of  exchange  between  the  principal  business  marts  of  the  country, 


THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM.  289 

arrived  when,  in  his  judgment,  Congress  should  exercise  its  au 
thority  in  this  direction.  To  effect  the  object  two  plans  were 
suggested.  The  first  contemplated  the  gradual  withdrawal  from 
circulation  of  the  notes  of  the  banks,  and  the  issue  in  their  stead 
of  United  States  notes — payable  in  cash  on  demand — in  amounts 
sufficient  for  the  useful  ends  of  a  representative  currency.  The 
second  contemplated  the  preparation  and  delivery,  to  institutions 
and  associations,  of  notes  prepared  under  national  direction  and 
to  be  secured,  as  to  prompt  convertibility  into  coin,  by  the  pledge 
of  United  States  bonds  and  other  needful  regulations. 

In  commenting  upon  these  plans,  Mr.  Chase  said  that  the 
first  was  in  part  adopted  when  at  its  last  session  Congress  au 
thorized  the  issue  of  United  States  notes  payable  in  coin,  to  the 
amount  of  fifty  millions  of  dollars.  This  provision  might  be 
so  extended  as  to  reach  the  average  circulation  of  the  country, 
while  a  moderate  tax  on  bank-notes — gradually  augmented — 
would  relieve  the  national  from  competition  with  local  circula 
tion.  The  substitution  would  be  equivalent  to  a  loan  by  the 
people  to  the  Government  without  interest,  except  on  the  fund 
in  coin  to  be  kept  for  redemption,  and  the  people  would  gain 
the  advantage  of  a  uniform  currency  and  relief  from  a  consider 
able  burden  in  the  form  of  interest  on  debt.  These  advantages 

the  frequent  convulsions  in  mercantile  affairs,  and  the  mischief  wrought  by  the  sapid 
inflations  and  reductions  of  market  prices,  marking  the  whole  history  of  our  State 
banking  system.  It  must  not,  however,  be  inferred  from  the  exclusion  of  other 
agencies  in  this  brief  historical  notice,  that  the  banks  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  sole 
or  primal  causes  of  our  business  catastrophes.  It  would  be  easy  to  show  that,  in 
the  groups  of  years  covered  by  our  monetary  convulsions,  the  varying  amounts  of 
foreign  imports  for  domestic  consumption  have  borne  a  determinate  ratio  to  the 
bank  circulation,  increasing  and  decreasing  together.  Not  in  exact  proportion,  in 
deed,  for  in  some  years  the  bank  circulation  increased  more  than  the  imports,  and  in 
some,  particularly  at  the  times  of  the  severest  collapses,  the  bank  circulation  fell 
lower  than  the  imports.  But  this  variance  is  explained  by  the  exigencies  of  the  case, 
and  an  absolute  dependence  and  reciprocity  is  well  proved.  For  certain  reasons,  it 
is  probable  that  the  excessive  imports  were  always  at  the  bottom  of  the  mischief,  but 
the  bank  inflations  invariably  answered  like  an  echo  and  gave  the  mischief  its  effect 
by  enlarging  the  credit  system  and  stimulating  speculative  expansion  of  the  banks 
till  they  bursted.  It  is  for  this  fellowship  in  mischief  with  all  speculative  over 
trading  that  they  are  here  arraigned ;  and  for  this  offense  the  array  of  facts  has  been 
given ;  for  partners  in  crime  are  not  the  less  culpable  for  being  what  lawyers  call 
accessories  after  the  fact,  or  merely  secondary  in  point  of  tune,  but  active  in  the  con 
spiracy  and  equally  effective  in  participation." 

19 


290  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

were  no  doubt  important,  and  if  a  scheme  could  be  devised  by 
which  such  a  circulation  could  be  certainly  and  strictly  confined 
within  the  real  needs  of  the  people,  and  kept  constantly  equiv 
alent  to  cash  by  a  prompt  and  certain  conversion,  it  could 
hardly  fail  of  legislative  sanction. 

But  this  plan  was  not  without  serious  inconveniences  and 
hazards.  In  times  of  pressure  and  danger  the  temptation  to 
issue  notes  without  adequate  provision  for  redemption ;  the  ever- 
present  liability  to  be  called  on  for  redemption  beyond  means, 
however  carefully  provided  and  managed ;  the  hazard  of  panics, 
precipitating  demands  for  coin,  concentrated  on  a  few  points 
and  a  single  fund ;  the  risk  of  a  depreciated,  depreciating  and 
finally  worthless  paper  money;  the  immeasurable  evils  of  a 
dishonored  public  faith  and  national  bankruptcy — all  these 
were  possible  consequences  of  a  system  of  Government  circula 
tion.  In  his  judgment  these  probable  disasters  so  far  out 
weighed  the  probable  benefits  of  the  plan  that  he  was  con 
strained  to  forbear  recommending  its  adoption. 

He  then  considered  the  second  of  the  suggested  plans.  Its 
principal  features  were :  1.  A  circulation  of  notes  bearing  a  com 
mon  impression  and  authenticated  by  a  common  authority ;  2. 
The  redemption  of  these  notes  by  the  associations  and  institu 
tions  to  which  they  might  be  delivered ;  and  3.  The  security  of 
that  redemption  by  the  pledge  of  United  States  stocks  and  an 
adequate  provision  of  specie. 

In  support  of  this  plan,  Mr.  Chase  said  that  the  people,  in 
their  ordinary  business,  would  find  in  it  the  advantages  of  a 
uniformity  in  currency ;  uniformity  in  security ;  effectual  safe 
guard — if  effectual  safeguard  is  possible — against  depreciation ; 
of  protection  from  losses  in  discounts  and  exchanges ;  while  in 
the  operations  of  Government  the  people  would  find  the  fur 
ther  advantage  of  a  large  demand  for  Government  securities,  of 
increased  facilities  for  obtaining  the  loans  required  to  carry  on 
the  war,  and  some  alleviation  of  the  burdens  on  industry 
through  a  diminution  in  the  rate  of  interest  and  a  participation 
in  the  profit  of  circulation  without  risking  the  perils  of  a  great 
money  monopoly.  Another  advantage  might  reasonably  be  ex 
pected  in  the  increased  security  of  the  Union,  springing  from 
the  common  interest  in  its  preservation  created  by  the  distribu- 


EXTRACTS  FROM  REPORT.  291 

tion  of  its  stocks  to  associations  throughout  the  country  as  the 
basis  of  their  circulation. 

Mr.  Chase  expressed  the  opinion  that  if  a  credit  circulation 
in  any  form  were  desirable,  it  would  be  so  in  the  one  described. 
The  notes  so  issued  and  secured  would,  in  his  judgment,  be  the 
best  currency  the  country  had  enjoyed ;  while  their  receivability 
for  all  Government  dues — except  customs — would  make  them, 
wherever  payable,  of  equal  value'  in  every  part  of  the  Union. 
The  large  amount  of  specie  in  the  country  (Mr.  Chase,  basing 
his  estimate  upon  that  of  the  Director  of  the  Mint  dated  Octo 
ber  10, 1861,  said  it  was  not  less  than  two  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  millions  of  dollars,  which  was  probably  much  beyond  the 
actual  sum)  *  would  easily  support  payments  of  duties  in  coin, 
while  those  payments  and  the  ordinary  demands  would  aid  in 
retaining  the  specie  in  the  country  as  the  solid  basis  both  of  cir 
culation  and  loans. 

The  whole  circulation  of  the  country,'  except  a  limited 
amount  of  foreign  coin,  would,  after  the  lapse  of  two  or  three 
years,  bear  the  impress  of  the  nation  whether  in  coin  or  notes ; 
while  the  amount  of  the  latter,  always  easily  ascertainable  and 
of  course  always  generally  known,  would  not  be  likely  to  be 
increased  beyond  the  real  wants  of  business. 

Mr.  Chase  had  great  confidence  in  this  plan,  because,  as  he 
said,  it  was  recommended  by  experience.  In  New  York,  and 
in  one  or  more  of  the  other  States,  its  essential  parts  had  been 
tested  and  found  useful  and  practicable.  The  probabilities  of 
its  success  would  not  be  diminished  but  increased  by  its  adop 
tion  under  national  sanction  and  for  the  whole  country. 

There  was  another  consideration  which,  in  his  judgment, 
was  entitled  to  much  weight,  and  that  was,  that  the  plan  very 
nearly — if  it  did  not  altogether — avoided  the  evils  of  a  great  and 
sudden  change  in  the  currency  by  offering  inducements  to  sol 
vent  existing  institutions  to  withdraw  their  circulation,  issued 
under  State  authority,  and  substitute  that  provided  by  the  au 
thority  of  the  Union;  and  so,  through  the  voluntary  action  of 
the  existing  institutions,  aided  by  wise  legislation,  the  great  tran 
sition  from  a  currency  heterogeneous,  unequal  and  unsafe,  to  one 

1  A  subsequent  estimate  made  by  Mr.  Chase,  upon  very  carefully  considered 
data,  placed  the  coin  in  the  country  at  $210,000,000. 


292  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

uniform,  equal  and  safe  might  be  speedily  and  almost  imper 
ceptibly  accomplished. 

Mr.  Chase  added  that  if  he  omitted  to  discuss  the  question 
of  the  constitutional  power  of  Congress  to  put  the  proposed 
plan  into  operation,  it  was  because  no  argument  was  necessary 
to  establish  the  proposition  that  the  power  to  regulate  com 
merce  and  the  value  of  the  coin  included  the  power  to  regulate 
the  currency  of  the  country,  or  the  collateral  proposition  that 
the  power  to  effect  the  end  includes  the  power  to  adopt  the 
necessary  and  expedient  means.  He  concluded  by  expressing  a 
hope  that  the  plan,  if  adopted  with  such  safeguards  as  the  wis 
dom  and  experience  of  Congress  should  suggest,  would  impart 
such  stability  and  value  to  the  Government  securities  as  that  it 
would  not  be  difficult  to  obtain  the  additional  loans  required  for 
the  service  of  the  current  and  succeeding  years  at  fair  and  rea 
sonable  rates,  especially  if  the  public  credit  were  supported  by 
sufficient  and  certain  provision  for  prompt  payment  of  interest 
and  ultimate  redemption  of  the  principal.1 

These  views  of  Mr.  Chase,  when  first  expressed,  found  but 
little  favor  and  less  support  in  either  House  of  Congress.  A 
majority  of  both  the  Senate  and  House  Financial  Committees 
were  incredulous  or  hostile.  Mr.  Hooper,  of  Massachusetts,  alone 
gave  them  public  approval,  and  it  is  noticeable  that  they  were 
as  vigorously  opposed  by  friends  of  the  Administration  as  by 
its  enemies ;  and  the  most  that  Mr.  Hooper  could  succeed  in 
doing  at  the  time,  was  to  obtain  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill  authoriz 
ing  a  system  of  national  banking  and  to  procure  an  order  for 
printing  it.3  It  was  not  pressed,  however,  during  the  session. 

1  Report  December  9,  1861. 

2  "Very  few,  when  I  submitted  a  plan  for  a  national  currency  to  Congress,  were 
prepared  to  accept  it  as  either  desirable  or  practicable.     A  majority  of  both  the 
House  and  Senate  Financial  Committees  were  incredulous  or  hostile.     Only  Mr. 
Hooper  of  Massachusetts — a  gentleman  who  sound  judgment  and  large  knowledge 
of  financial  subjects,  gave  great  and  deserved  weight  to  his  opinions — encouraged 
me  by  open  support.     Out  of  Congress,  Robert  J.  Walker — distinguished  by  his 
brilliant  administration  of  the  Treasury,  and  by  his  great  ability — gave  the  plan  the 
sanction  of  his  approval.     Encouraged  by  such  judgments,  I  was  not  daunted  by 
the  general  opposition." — Mr.  CHASE  TO  MR.  TROWBRIDGE. 


CHAPTER    XXXII. 

MR.  CHASE  RENEWS  HIS  RECOMMENDATION  OF  A  NATIONAL  BANK 
ING  SYSTEM,  DECEMBER,  1862 — DEBATE  UPON  THE  BILL  IN 
HOUSE  AND  SENATE FINAL  PASSAGE  OF  THE  BILL,  FEBRU 
ARY  25,  1863 — PRINCIPAL  FEATURES  OF  THAT  BILL — ORGANI 
ZATION  OF  NATIONAL  CURRENCY  BUREAU — :AMENDATORY  ACT 

OF     1864 — DISCUSSION    IN     CONGRESS — BANK     OF     COMMERCE 

ABSTRACT     OF     THE     AMENDATORY     ACT OPERATION     OF     THE 

ACT TAXATION     OF     STATE     BANKS — PRESENT     CONDITION     OF 

THE   NATIONAL    BANKS. 

IN  his  second  annual  report,  made  December  4,  1862,  Mr. 
Chase  renewed  his  recommendations  of  a  system  of  banking 
associations  and  enforced  them  with  additional  arguments.  He 
repeated  the  conviction  expressed  in  his  first  report  that  while 
Government  notes  were  preferable  to  the  issues  of  State  insti 
tutions,  a  circulation  furnished  by  Government  and  issued  by 
banking  associations  organized  under  a  general  act  of  Congress, 
was  preferable  to  either.  It  would  unite  more  elements  of 
soundness  and  utility.  While  a  circulation  furnished  directly 
by  the  Government  was  recommended  by  two  chief  considera 
tions — namely,  1.  Facility  of  production  in  times  of  emergency, 
and  2.  Cheapness — there  were,  on  the  other  hand,  four  main  and 
serious  objections.  These  were :  1.  Facility  of  excessive  expan 
sion  when  expenditure  should  exceed  revenue ;  2.  Danger  of 
lavish  and  corrupt  expenditure  stimulated  by  facility  of  expan 
sion  ;  3.  Danger  of  fraud  in  management  and  supervision ;  and 
4.  The  impossibility  of  supplying  it  in  sufficient  amounts  for 
the  wants  of  the  people  when  expenditures  are  reduced  to 


294  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

equality  with  the  revenue  or  below  it.  He  declared  the  central 
idea  of  his  proposed  'measure  to  ~be  the  establishment  of  one 
sound,  uniform  circulation,  of  equal  value  throughout  the 
country,  upon  the  foundation  of  national  credit  combined  with 
private  capital.  The  associations  were  to  be  voluntary,  but  as 
a  bounty  to  prompt  volunteering  into  this  department  of  the 
public  service,  Mr.  Chase — in  a  preceding  paragraph  of  the 
report  from  which  we  are  quoting — had  recommended  a  mod 
erate  tax  on  circulation  of  the  State  banks  as  the  best  means 
of  reducing  their  issues,  and  as  an  incentive  to  the  substitution 
of  national  bank-notes.  Such  a  tax,  he  said,  could  involve  no 
hardship.  There  could  be  no  sound  reason  for  exempting  from 
taxation  that  species  of  property  which  cost  the  proprietor  least 
and  produced  him  most.  He  proposed  no  interference  with  the 
Independent  Treasury,  but  it  seemed  clear  that  the  contemplated 
associations  would  be  the  best  and  safest  depositories  of  the 
public  revenues.  He  estimated  that  the  associations  would  ab 
sorb  in  a  few  years  §250,000,000  of  Government  bonds.  . 

•The  proposed  plan  was  recommended  finally  by  the  firm 
anchorage  it  would  supply  to  the  Union  of  the  States.  Every 
banking  association  whose  bonds  were  deposited  in  the  Treasury 
of  the  Union ;  every  individual  who  held  a  dollar  of  the  cir 
culation  secured  by  such  deposits;  every  merchant,  every  manu 
facturer,  every  farmer,  every  mechanic,  interested  in  transac 
tions  dependent  for  success  on  the  credit  of  circulation,  would 
feel  as  an  injury  every  attempt  to  rend  the  national  unity,  with 
the  permanence  and  stability  of  which  all  their  interests  are  so 
closely  and  vitally  connected.  It  was  a  public  duty  to  extract 
good  from  evil  whenever  possible.  And  out  of  the  public 
debt,  never  itself  a  good,  this  benefit  might  be  extracted.1 

At  the  close  of  the  second  session  of  the  Thirty-seventh 
Congress — as  has  been  already  observed — the  measure  so  ear 
nestly  pressed  by  Mr.  Chase  was  almost  friendless.  The  banks 
were  practically  unanimous  in  their  hostility  to  it,  and  it  was 
viewed  with  keen  suspicion  by  men  of  all  shades  of  political 
opinions.  The  repression  of  the  State  bank  issues  and  the  sub 
stitution  in  their  stead  of  the  notes  of  associations  organized 
under  authority  of  the  General  Government,  were  features  es- 

.   1  Report,  December  4,  1862. 


DEBATE  ON  THE  BILL.  295 

pecially  obnoxious ;  they  savored,  as  was  imagined,  not  only  of 
the  United  States  Bank  as  a  powerful  money  corporation,  but 
also  of  its  supposed  dangerous  political  tendencies.  But  not 
withstanding  possible  future  perils,  the  prospects  of  the  measure 
had  materially  grown  in  the  interval  between  the  close  of  the 
second  and  the  opening  of  the  third  session  of  the  Thirty- 
seventh  Congress,  December  1,  1862. 

The  bill  authorizing  the  national  banking  associations  was 
exhaustively  debated  in  the  Senate,  and  February  19,  1863,  Mr. 
Collamer  summed  up  the  chief  objections  alleged  against  it. 
They  were : 

That  it  proposed  to  tax  the  State  banks  out  of  existence. 
That  it  substituted  for  the  thirteen  or  fourteen  hundred  banks 
doing  business  in  what  were  called  the  loyal  States  at  least  three 
thousand  and  perhaps  six  thousand  institutions  entirely  indepen 
dent  of  the  power  of  visitation  by  those  States.  That  it  re 
moved  from  all  forms  of  State  taxation  all  the  capital  employed 
in  local  banking  corporations ;  thus  interfering  with  the  school 
funds  of  many  of  the  States.  That  it  made  the  Government 
responsible  for  the  ultimate  redemption  of  the  circulation  of  the 
associations.  That  it  put  great  political  power  into  the  hands 
of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  That  it  hired  the  banking 
associations  to  circulate  three  hundred  millions  of  currency  at  a 
yearly  expense  of  twelve  millions  of  dollars  in  gold  to  the  people, 
who  were  at  last  responsible  for  the  circulation ;  in  short,  that 
the  people  of  the  country  would  derive  no  benefit  from  the 
operations  of  the  bill.  And  that — after  all — the  profits  deriv 
able  to  the  banks  would  be  too  small. 

It  was  said  by  Mr.  Sherman  in  reply  to  this  that  if  one 
hundred  millions  of  the  circulation  of  the  State  banks  was 
withdrawn,  the  Government  would  reap  the  advantage  at  any 
rate  of  a  market  for  one  hundred  millions  of  its  stocks.  And 
the  creation  of  a  demand  for  one  hundred  millions  would,  in 
pursuance  of  well-known  and  recognized  laws  of  trade,  excite 
a  demand  for  five  hundred  millions.  He  thought  the  political 
power  of  the  Secretary  would  rather  be  weakened  than  strength 
ened  by  the  operation  of  the  proposed  system.  The  powers 
conferred  by  the  bill  were  more  likely  to  make  enemies  than 
friends  for  the  Secretary  who  exercised  them. 


296  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

Mr.  Doolittle  alleged  that  in  his  judgment  the  States,  under 
the  Constitution,  had  no  right  either  to  issue  a  paper  circulation 
or  incorporate  a  company  to  do  so  ;  and  further,  that  gold  and 
silver  formed  the  sound  constitutional  currency.  But  the  history 
of  the  country  and  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  had  gone  the 
other  way,  with  the  practical  effect  of  giving  rise  to  fifteen  hun 
dred  banks  created  by  State  authority,  and  the  currency  in  use 
was  the  irredeemable  paper  of  those  banks.  As  a  practical  fact 
the  war  must  be  carried  on  by  paper  money,  and  the  Govern 
ment  must  take  the  issues  into  its  own  hands.  But  while  creating 
and  issuing  paper  money,  it  would  not  do  to  allow  the  channels 
of  circulation  to  be  flooded  by  the  State  institutions;  by  per 
mitting  them  to  do  so  the  Government  would  destroy  itself. 

The  vote  in  the  Senate  upon  the  bill  was  twenty-three  for  to 
twenty-one  against,  and  in  the  House  seventy-eight  yeas  to  sixty- 
four  nays.  An  analysis  of  these  votes  shows  while  but  one 
Democratic  Senator  (Kesmith,  of  Oregon)  voted  for  the  bill, 
seven  Republican  Senators  (Collamer,  Cowan,  Dixon,  Foot, 
Grimes,  King,  and  Trumbull)  voted  against  it.  In  the  House 
the  Democrats  voting  for  the  bill  were  two ;  and  the  Republi 
cans  voting  against  it  twenty-five.  It  became  a  law  by  the  ap 
proval  of  the  President  February  25,  1863.1 

The  act  contained  sixty-five  sections.  The  first  four  related 
to  the  organization  in  the  Treasury  Department  of  an  additional 
bureau,  to  be  charged  with  the  execution  of  the  laws  authorizing 
and  regulating  the  issue  of  a  national  currency,  the  chief  officer 
of  which  was  to  be  denominated  the  Controller  of  the  Currency. 

The  leading  features  of  the  act  were  these : 

It  required  at  least  thirty  per  cent,  of  the  capital  stock  of  as 
sociations  formed  in  pursuance  of  its  provisions,  to  be  paid  in 
before  beginning  business,  and  the  remainder  in  installments  of 
ten  per  cent,  of  the  whole  capital  subscribed  at  periods  not 
farther  apart  than  two  months.  The  capital  might  be  increased, 
but  no  increase  to  be  valid  until  actually  paid  up.  The  liability 
of  shareholders,  for  both  circulation  and  deposits,  extended  not 

1  At  the  time  of  the  passage  of  this  act  the  whole  circulation  in  the  loyal  States 
was  $167,000,000.  The  State  securities  held  for  this  amount  were  $40,000,000, 
leaving  over  $120,000,000  inadequately  provided  for.  In  only  nine  of  the  States  did 
the  law  require  the  circulation  to  be  secured  by  State  bonds. 


LEADING  FEATURES  OF  THE  ACT.  297 

only  to  the  amount  actually  invested  in  the  shares,  but  to  an  ad 
ditional  sum  equal  to  their  par  value. 

Preliminary  to  beginning  business  the  association  was  re 
quired  to  transfer  and  deliver  to  the  United  States  Treasurer 
interest-bearing  bonds  of  the  United  States  in  sum  not  less  than 
one-third  of  the  capital  stock  paid  in,  and  thereupon  to  be  en 
titled  to  receive  circulating  notes  of  various  denominations  in 
blank — registered  and  countersigned,  however — equal  to  ninety 
per  cent,  of  the  current  value  of  the  bonds,  but  not  exceeding 
their  par  value  if  bearing  interest  at  the  rate  of  six  per  cent.,  or 
of  equivalent  United  States  bonds  if  bearing  a  less  rate  of  in 
terest  ;  but  the  aggregate  of  notes  delivered  at  no  time  to  exceed 
the  amount  of  capital  stock  actually  paid  in. 

The  whole  amount  of  circulating  notes  authorized  was 
$300,000,000 ;  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  to  be  apportioned 
according  to  representative  population,  and  a  like  sum  according 
to  the  then  existing  banking  capital,  resources,  and  business 
of  the  States,  Territories,  and  District  of  Columbia. 

In  lieu  of  all  other  taxes  upon  the  notes  and  the  bonds 
pledged  for  their  security,  and  to  reimburse  the  expenses  of  pre 
paring  the  circulating  notes,  a  tax  of  two  per  cent,  a  year  was 
levied  upon  the  amount  of  the  circulation  of  the  association.  On 
the  other  hand  the  notes  were  made  receivable  in  payment  of  all 
dues  to  the  United  States  except  duties  on  imports,  and  payable 
in  satisfaction  of  all  demands  against  the  United  States  except 
interest  on  the  public  debt.  Post  and  other  notes  intended  to 
circulate  as  money  were  prohibited. 

If  the  association  failed  to  redeem  its  notes  on  demand  in 
lawful  money  of  the  United  States,  they  might  be  protested,  and 
after  protest  the  association  was  suspended  from  further  pursuing 
its  business,  except  to  receive  moneys  belonging  to  it  and  to  de 
liver  special  deposits.  If,  however,  it  was  legally  restrained 
from  paying  its  notes  by  order  of  court,  no  protest  could  be 
made.  But  in  case  of  actual  default,  the  Controller  was  re 
quired — within  thirty  days  after  notice  of  the  failure — to  de 
clare  the  bonds  pledged  by  the  association  to  be  forfeited.  Its 
outstanding  circulating  notes  were  thereupon  to  be  redeemed  at 
the  Treasury  of  the  United  States,  and  bonds  of  the  association 
equal  at  current  rates,  not  exceeding  par,  to  the  amount  of  the 


298  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

notes  redeemed,  might  be  canceled,  or  sold  at  public  auction 
in  the  city  of  New  York,  or  at  private  sale  under  prescribed 
limitations.  If  any  deficiency  should  exist  relative  to  the  sum 
of  the  notes  redeemed  and  the  bonds  canceled  or  sold,  the  United 
States  reserved  a  first  and  paramount  lien  upon  all  the  assets  of 
the  association. 

"Whenever  bonds  of  the  description  of  those  pledged  for  the 
security  of  the  notes  of  the  association  sold  in  the  New  York 
Stock  Exchange  *  for  a  period  of  four  consecutive  weeks  at  a  less 
rate  than  that  at  which  they  were  estimated  when  pledged,  pay 
ment  of  interest  upon  them  was  to  be  suspended  until  the  cur 
rent  market  value  of  the  bonds  and  the  suspended  interest  added 
together,  made  the  bonds  equal  to  their  value  as  estimated  when 
pledged.  Every  three  months  the  interest  retained  under  this 
provision  was  to  be  invested  in  United  States  bonds  in  trust  for 
the  association ;  but  when  the  bonds  in  the  New  York  Stock 
Exchange  rose  again  to  the  price  at  which  they  were  estimated 
when  pledged,  and  so  remained  for  four  consecutive  weeks,  the 
investment  to  be  assigned  to  the  association  and  the  accruing 
interest  paid  to  it. 

Stockholders,  either  individually  or  collectively,  were  pro 
hibited  from  being  at  any  time  liable  to  the  association,  either 
as  principal  debtors  or  sureties  or  both,  to  an  amount  greater 
than  three-fifths  of  the  capital  stock  actually  paid  in  and  remain 
ing  undiminished  by  losses  or  otherwise,  nor  could  directors  be 
come  so  liable,  except  to  such  an  amount  and  in  such  manner  as 
might  be*  prescribed  in  the  by-laws.  (Each  director  was  required 
to  own  in  his  own  right  one  per  cent,  of  the  capital  where  the 
whole  capital  did  not  exceed  two  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and 
one-half  of  one  per  cent,  if  the  capital  was  over  two  hundred 
thousand.)  Shareholders  were  prohibited  from  transferring 
their  shares  so  long  as  they  were  liable  for  any  debt  due  and  un 
paid  to  the  association,  and  dividends  and  profits  due  such  share 
holders  could  be  applied  by  the  association  to  the  discharge  of 
such  liabilities. 

The  association  was  prohibited  making  loans  upon  the  secu 
rity  of  its  own  capital  stock. 

1  By  the  act  of  June  3,  1864,  the  value  of  such  bonds  was  made  to  depend,  not 
upon  their  price  in  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange,  but  in  the  general  market. 


LEADING  FEATURES  OF  THE  ACT.  299 

The  association  was  required  to  have  on  hand  at  all  times  in 
lawful  money  of  the  United  States  a  sum  equal  at  least  to  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  of  the  aggregate  of  its  outstanding  circulation  and 
deposits,  and  whenever  the  deposits  and  outstanding  circulation 
should  exceed  this  proportion  for  a  period  of  twelve  days,  it  was 
prohibited  from  increasing  its  liabilities  by  making  new  loans  or 
discounts,  otherwise  than  by  discounting  or  purchasing  bills  of 
exchange  payable  at  sight,  or  making  any  dividend  of  profits, 
until  the  required  proportion  between  the  lawful  money  reserve 
and  the  circulation  and  deposits  was  restored.  Clearing-house 
certificates  representing  specie  or  lawful  money  specially  depos 
ited  for  the  purposes  of  a  clearing-house  association  were  to  be 
deemed  lawful  money.  Balances  due  from  associations  in  Bos 
ton,  Providence,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  Cincinnati, 
Chicago,  St.  Louis  and  New  Orleans,  to  associations  in  other 
places,  subject  to  be  drawn  for  at  sight  and  available  to  redeem 
their  circulation  and  deposits,  were  also  to  be  deemed  lawful 
money  to  the  extent  of  three-fifths  of  the  lawful  money  reserve. 
With  the  concurrence  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  the 
Controller  of  the  Currency  was  authorized  to  appoint  a  receiver 
to  wind  up  the  business  of  any  association  which  should  fail, 
within  thirty  days  after  notice,  to  make  good  the  lawful  money 
reserve  where  deficient. 

The  association  was  prohibited  from  incurring  debts  or  lia 
bilities  exceeding  the  capital  stock  actually  paid  in  and  undimin- 
ished  by  losses,  except  on  account — 1.  Of  its  circulating  notes ; 
2.  Of  money  deposited  or  collected  by  it ;  3.  Of  bills  of  'exchange 
or  drafts  drawn  against  money  actually  on  deposit  to  its  credit 
or  due  to  it ;  and,  4.  Of  liabilities  to  its  stockholders  for  money 
paid  in  on  capital  stock,  and  dividends  thereon  and  profits.  The 
association  was  prohibited  pledging  or  hypothecating  directly  or 
indirectly  any  of  its  circulating  notes  to  procure  money  to  be 
paid  in  on  its  capital  stock,  or  to  be  used  in  its  banking  opera 
tions  or  otherwise  ;  nor  could  there  be  withdrawn  either  in  the 
form  of  dividends,  loans  to  stockholders  for  a  longer  period  than 
six  months,  or  in  any  other  manner,  any  portion  of  the  capital. 
No  dividends  could  be  made  where  losses  equaled  undivided 
profits,  and  debts  overdue  six  months  were  to  be  accounted  bad. 

Interest  could  be  charged  at  the  legal  rate  in  the  State  where 


300  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

the  association  was  located,  and  willfully  taking  or  reserving 
more  than  the  legal  rate  worked  a  forfeiture  of  the  debt ;  but  to 
reserve  the  legal  interest  at  the  time  of  making  the  loan,  "  ac 
cording  to  the  usual  rules  of  banking,"  was  not  to  be  deemed  a 
violation  of  the  act. 

The  liabilities  of  the  association  on  any  one  account  at  any 
one  time  could  not  exceed  one-third — exclusive  of  liabilities  as 
acceptor  one-fifth,  and  exclusive  of  liabilities  on  ~bona-fide  bills 
of  exchange  payable  out  of  the  State,  one-tenth  of  the  capital 
stock  actually  paid  in. 

All  transfers,  assignments,  and  deposits,  made  by  insolvent 
associations  or  in  contemplation  of  an  act  of  insolvency,  for  the 
benefit  of  shareholders  or  for  the  preference  of  creditors,  were 
declared  to  be  null  and  void.  Nor  could  any  association  pay  out 
or  put  into  circulation  the  notes  of  any  bank  or  banking  associa 
tion  which  should  not  be  receivable  at  the  time  at  par  on  de 
posit  or  in  payment  of  debts  due  the  association  paying  out  or 
circulating  them ;  nor  could  it  circulate  the  notes  of  any  associa 
tion  which  at  the  time  did  not  redeem  its  notes  in  lawful  money 
of  the  United  States. 

A  semi-annual  report,  under  oath  of  the  cashier,  was  required 
to  be  made  to  the  Controller  of  the  Currency.  Without  here 
going  into  the  details  required  to  be  exhibited  in  this  statement, 
it  is  enough  to  observe  that  it  is  thoroughly  exhaustive  of  the 
affairs  of  the  association  and  of  the  amounts  and  circumstances 
of  its  liabilities  and  resources. 

The  Secretary  was  authorized  to  make  the  associations  deposi 
tories  of  public  moneys  (except  receipts  from  customs). 

Ample  provision  was  made  against  evasions  and  violations  of 
the  act  by  associations,  against  counterfeiting  the  circulating 
notes  and  against  their  mutilation,  and  for  examination  into  the 
affairs  of  the  associations  when  such  examination  seemed  to  be 
required  by  the  public  interest. 

And  finally,  provision  was  made  for  the  conversion  of  State 
banks  into  national  associations. 

The  privileges  of  the  act  were  to  continue  for  a  period  of 
twenty  years  from  the  time  of  its  passage,  though  Congress  re 
served  the  important  right  of  modifying  or  altogether  repeal 
ing  it. 


THE  NATIONAL  CURRENCY  BUREAU.  301 

The  National  Currency  Bureau  was  organized  so  soon  as  was 
practicable,  and  Mr.  Chase  in  his  next  report  to  Congress — De 
cember  10, 1863 — ascribed  to  the  operation  of  the  act  important 
and  salutary  effects.  It  materially  aided  in  a  prompt  revival  of 
the  public  credit,  and  in  procuring  funds  for  liquidating  current 
demands  against  Government,  and  especially  for  paying  the  large 
arrears  due  to  the  army  and  navy.  The  number  of  associations  or 
ganized  up  to  that  time  was  one  hundred  and  thirty-four — chiefly 
in  the  "West — with  capitals  aggregating  $16,081,200.  Some  em 
barrassment  was  experienced  in  the  conversion  of  State  banks ; 
and  to  remedy  this  and  other  defects  which  a  year's  experience 
in  the  practical  working  of  the  act  had  developed,  it  was  re 
modeled  during  the  first  session  of  the  Thirty-eighth  Congress. 
The  object  in  remodeling  was  declared  to  be  "  to  offer  every  fa 
cility  to  the  State  banks  to  organize  under  the  law,  to  encourage 
banking  upon  sounder  principles,  to  render  it  more  secure  for 
stockholders,  and  more  beneficial  to  the  people  of  the  whole 
country."  * 

Public  sentiment  in  relation  to  the  national  banking  system 
had  undergone  a  marked  change  in  the  interval  between  the  pas 
sage  of  the  act  of  1863  and  the  period  at  which  the  discussion  of 
the  act  of  1864  began.  It  had  so  grown  in  the  general  favor, 
that  the  Eepublican  party  if  not  actually  was  substantially  a  unit 
in  its  support. 

The  debate  upon  the  amendatory  act  was  exhaustive  and  de 
veloped  all  the  objections  that  could  justly  be  alleged  against  the 
system.  It  was  charged — 

1.  That  it  inflated  the  currency  and  raised  prices.  "The 
enormous  expansion  is  seen  and  felt  on  all  sides,"  said  .Mr. 
Brooks,  of  New  York.  "  No  fact  showed  more  significantly  the 
gigantic  increase  in  the  exchanges  and  currency  than  the  reports 
of  the  New  York  Clearing-House.  The  average  daily  clearances 
for  the  ten  years  prior  to  the  close  of  1861  had  been  $22,000,000, 
while  at  the  date  of  his  speaking  they  averaged  $115,000,000, 
and  on  one  late  day  they  had  reached  the  enormous  sum  of 
$146,000,000 !  The  consequence  was  the  revelry  and  intoxica 
tion  of  speculators,  and  a  spectacle  not  exhibited  on  the  earth 
since  the  days  of  John  Law,"  He  presented  some  statistics  to 

1  Mr.  Hooper,  House  of  Representatives,  March  23,  1864. 


302  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

show  the  increase  in  prices.  He  alleged  the  average  increase  in 
thirteen  articles  of  prime  necessity  (flour,  oats,  corn,  coffee,  gun 
powder,  iron,  lead,  pork,  beef,  butter,  salt,  soap,  teas)  to  be,  be 
tween  December,  1860,  and  December,  1863,  equal  to  an  average 
rise  of  63J-  per  cent.1 

It  could  not  be  denied  that  there  had  been  a  large  increase  in 
the  prices  of  almost  all  commodities,  though  it  was  not  so  great 
as  was  alleged  by  Mr.  Brooks. 

2.  That  it  provided  for  an  irredeemable  currency.  It  was 
alleged  that  the  war  could  have  been  carried  on  by  the  instru 
mentality  of  the  State  banks  upon  a  hard-money  basis.3  To  this 
it  was  answered,  that  it  was  the  action  of  the  State  banks  of  the 
city  of  New  York  in  suspending 8  specie  payments  in  December, 
1861,  that  constrained  the  suspension  of  the  banks  throughout 
the  country  and  of  the  United  States  Treasury.  "When  the  na 
tional  currency  system  was  first  adopted  it  was  opposed,  as  though 
it  were  a  question  which  of  two  currencies,  coin  or  paper,  the 
Government  would  adopt.  A  coin  circulation  was  not  possible. 
The  Government  could  only  choose  between  two  paper  curren 
cies  :  one  furnished  by  the  State  banks,  liable  to  be  extended 
almost  indefinitely  by  Government  use  of  it  and  controlled  by 
the  banks  entirely  for  their  own  profit ;  or  one  furnished  by  the 
Government  under  its  own  direction  and  control,  secured  by  the 
pledged  faith  of  the  nation,  and  the  profits  of  which  should  ac 
crue  to  the  benefit  of  the  whole  people  of  the  country.4  In  sup 
port  of  the  charge  that  the  State  banks  would  have  increased 
their  issues  indefinitely,  was  cited  the  example  of  twenty-five 
State  institutions  (taken  from  official  reports)  located  in  six  dif 
ferent  States :  six  in  New  York ;  one  in  New  Jersey ;  thirteen 
in  Pennsylvania;  one  in  Delaware;  one  in  Indiana;  three  in 
Ohio.  The  aggregate  capital  of  these  several  banks  amounted 
to  $1,932,968  and  their  circulation  to  five  millions  nine  hundred 
and  ninety-eight  thousand  and  eighty-eight  dollars !  One  of 
them — the  Bellinger  Bank,  of  New  York — with  a  capital  of 

1  Mr.  James  Brooks,  House  of  Representatives,  March  24,  1864. 
*  Pamphlet  of  James  Gallatin,  cited  by  Mr.  Brooks. 

8  According  to  Mr.  Hooper,  incited  to  that  action  by  the  urgent  advice  of  Mr. 
Gallatin.     In  House  of  Representives,  April  6,  1864. 

4  Mr.  Hooper,  House  of  Representatives,  March  23, 1864. 


OBJECTIONS  TO  AMENDATORY  ACT.  303 

$10,000,  circulated  notes  to  the  amount  of  876,280 !  It  was 
owned  by  a  single  individual  whose  liability  was  no  greater  than 
the  amount  of  capital  actually  invested. 

3.  It  was  objected  that  the  act  relieved  the  capital  of  the 
national  banks  from  taxation  by  the  State  authorities.  Mr. 
Kernan  quoted  from  the  report  of  the  Superintendent  of  Banks 
of  New  York  for  1863,  an  extract  which  ably  and  succinctly  em 
bodied  the  objection :  "  It  cannot  be  deemed  unjust,"  said  the 
superintendent,  "  that  the  burdens  of  the  State  shall  be  imposed 
impartially  on  the  property  of  the  State.  Banks,  corporations 
and  individuals,  share  alike  in  the  protection  of  State  laws  and 
the  advantages  of  local  government.  The  equity  which  releases 
a  large  portion  of  the  wealth  of  the  State  from  local  taxation 
and  fixes  the  deficiency  upon  property  less  negotiable  in  its  char 
acter — which  exempts  the  bond  of  the  capitalist  only  to  assess  it 
upon  the  dwelling  of  the  mechanic  or  the  land  of  the  agricult 
urist — will  not  be  readily  admitted.  Had  Congress  limited  the 
immunities  conferred  upon  the  holders  of  United  States  stocks 
to  exemption  from  taxation  for  all  the  purposes  of  the  national 
Government,  it  would  probably  have  served  every  desirable  end. 
But  when  it  goes  further  and  assumes  to  remove  the  property 
of  citizens  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  State  in  which  it  is  lo 
cated,  and  exempts  it  from  all  burdens  of  a  municipal  character, 
it  trenches  upon  ground  of  questionable  utility,  which  may  be 
productive  of  popular  discontent,  alike  injurious  to  the  Govern 
ment  and  the  institutions  availing  themselves  of  the  immunities 
offered." 

It  was  urged,  in  answer  to  this,  that  the  banks  were  subjected 
to  heavier  burdens  by  the  national  Government  than  most  other 
kinds  of  property ;  that  the  public  faith  was  pledged  that  the 
bonds  upon  which  their  circulation  was  based  should  be  free 
from  State  and  local  taxation;  that  under  decisions  of  the 
Supreme  Court  banks  chartered  by  the  United  States  could  not 
be  taxed  by  the  State  authorities ;  that,  were  it  otherwise,  the 
States  might  tax  the  national  banks  out  of  existence.  More 
over,  that  the  Government  left  the  banks  no  option  but  to  hold 
Government  securities  as  a  portion  of  their  capital,  and  to  com 
pel  them  to  hold  property  which  might  be  excessively  taxed  by 
the  States  would  be  fundamentally  unjust. 


304  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

The  amendatory  act  was  approved  June  3,  1864.     The  more 
important  modifications  effected  by  it  were  these : 

1.  That  no  organization  should  be  permitted  with  a  capital 
of  less  than  one  hundred  thousand  dollars ;  in  cities  containing 
over  fifty  thousand  inhabitants  capitals  not  to  be  less  than  two 
hundred  thousand  dollars.     Paradoxically  enough,  however,  it 
was   enacted  in  the   same   section   that  in  places  containing 
populations  of  not  more  than  six  thousand,  banks  with  capitals 
o^  not  less  than  fifty  thousand  dollars  might  be  authorized. 

2.  Shareholders  in  banks  existing  under   the  authority  of 
State  laws  (and  converted  into  national  associations),  having  not 
less  than  five  millions  of  capital  actually  paid  in  and  a  surplus 
of  twenty  per  cent,  on  hand  (this  surplus  to  be  in  addition  to 
that  required  by  the  act  and  to  be  kept  undiminished),  were 
made  liable  only  to  the  amount  invested  in  their  shares.     Should 
any  deficiency  occur  in  the  required  additional  surplus  of  twenty 
per  cent.,  the  association  was  prohibited  from  paying  any  divi 
dends  until  the  deficiency  was  made  good,  and  the  Controller 
of  the  Currency  might  compel  it  to  cease  business.     It  was  un 
derstood  that  this  provision  was  intended  to  apply  particularly 
to  the  Bank  of  Commerce  in  the  city  of  ISTew  York.     Concern 
ing  this  bank  some  interesting  statements  were  made.     Its  capi 
tal  was  ten  millions  of  dollars,  with  a  right  to  increase  it  ulti 
mately  to  fifty  millions.     It  was  thought  that  with  so  large  a 
capital  this  great  corporation  might  prove  a  formidable  enemy 
to  the  national  associations.1     It  had  been  in  existence  twenty- 
six  years,  and  its  chartered  privileges  were  to  continue  until 
1889.     It  had  over  twenty-two  hundred  shareholders,  living  in 
twenty  States  and  Territories  of  the  United  States,  in  Great 
Britain  and  the  British  Provinces,  in  France,  in  South  Amer 
ica,  in  Greece,  in  Asia,  and  in  Mexico.     Of  these  shareholders 
more   than  seven  hundred  were  women.     Its  investments  in 
United  States  securities  amounted  to  fourteen  millions  of  dol 
lars.     Its  cash  items  (including  $1,751,000  United  States  notes) 
reached  the  large  sum  of  $7,934,000;   and  its  specie  (includ 
ing  $411,912  held  for  depositors)  amounted  to  $1,534,000.     Its 
loans  and  discounts  were  two  and  a  half  millions  ($2,686,000)  • 

1  Remarks  of  Mr.  Broomall,  of  Pennsylvania. 


MODIFICATIONS  EFFECTED   BY  IT.  305 

and  the  amount  of  its  deposits  nearly  fifteen  and  a  half  millions 


3.  At  least  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  capital  stock  was  to  be  paid 
in  before  beginning  business,  and  the  remainder  was  to  be  paid 
in  installments  of  ten  per  cent,  upon  the  whole  capital  at  periods 
not  further  separated  than  one  month  each. 

4.  The  whole  bank  circulation  was  limited  to  three  hun 
dred  millions  of  dollars,  but  there  was  no  restriction  as  to  its 
distribution. 

5.  The  total  liability  to  the  association  on  any  one  account 
could  not  exceed  at  any  one  time  ten  per  cent,  of  the  capital  ac 
tually  paid  in,  but  the  discount  of  ~bona-fide  bills  of  exchange 
against  actually-existing  values  and  the  discount  of  commercial 
paper  actually  owned  by  the  party  negotiating  it  were  not  to  be 
considered  as  money  borrowed. 

6.  Associations  in  the  cities  of  St.  Louis,  Chicago,  Louis 
ville,  Detroit,  Milwaukee,  New  Orleans,  Cincinnati,  Cleveland, 
Pittsburg,  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  Boston,  New  York,  Albany, 
Leavenworth,  San  Francisco,  and  Washington,  were  required  to 
have  on  hand  at  all  times,  in  lawful  money,  of  the  United  States, 
an  amount  equal  to  at  least  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  the  aggre 
gate  amount  of  their  notes  in  circulation  and  deposits,  and  asso 
ciations  located  elsewhere  than  in  those  cities  fifteen  per  cent. 
in  lawful  money.     Clearing-house  certificates  representing  coin 
or  lawful  money  specially  deposited  for  Clearing-House  pur 
poses  to  be  deemed  lawful  money  in  the  possession  of  the  asso 
ciation  owning  and  holding  such  certificates,  and  three-fifths  of 
the  fifteen  per  cent,  lawful  money  reserve  required  to  be  held  by 
banks  outside  of  the  cities  specifically  named,  might  be  in  funds 
deposited  in  associations  in  those  cities  for  the  redemption  of  cir 
culation.     The  associations  in  the  several  specified  cities  were 
each  required  to  select  an  association  in  the  city  of  New  York 
at  which  to  redeem  its  circulating  notes  at  par.     And  every  as 
sociation  organized  elsewhere  than  in  one  of  the  specified  cities 
was  required  to  select  an  association  in  one  pf  those  cities  at 
which  it  would  redeem  its  circulating  notes  at  par. 

7.  One-tenth  of  all  the  net  profits  was  required  to  be  carried 

1  This  bank  rendered  important  services  to  the  Treasury  Department  during  the 
rebellion  ;  some  of  them  of  an  extremely  confidential  character. 
20 


306  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

to  the  surplus  fund  of  the  association  until  such  fund  should 
amount  to  a  sum  equal  to  twenty  per  cent,  of  the  capital.  The 
association  itself  and  the  individual  members  were  alike  prohib 
ited  from  withdrawing  or  permitting  to  be  withdrawn — in  the 
form  of  dividends  or  otherwise — any  portion  of  the  capital. 
And  in  addition  to  semi-annual  and  quarterly  reports,  the  as 
sociation  was  required  to  make  to  the  Controller  on  the  first 
Tuesday  of  each  month  a  statement  showing  the  average  amount 
of  loans  and  discounts,  specie  and  other  lawful  money,  deposits 
and  circulation ;  and  associations  located  elsewhere  than  in  the 
cities  named  in  the  preceding  paragraph  were  required  to  re 
turn  the  amount  due  them  available  for  the  redemption  of  their 
circulation.  Moreover,  a  list  of  the  shareholders  with  the  num 
ber  of  shares  held  by  each,  and  the  shareholder's  place  of  resi 
dence,  was  required  to  be  kept  in  the  office  of  the  association, 
subject  to  the  inspection  of  creditors  and  shareholders,  and  the 
officers  authorized  to  assess  the  State  taxes. 

8.  In  lieu  of  all  other  taxes1  the  association  was  required 

1  By  the  79th  section  of  the  Internal  Revenue  Act  of  July  13,  1866,  national 
banks  using  a  capital  not  exceeding  fifty  thousand  dollars  were  subjected  to  the 
payment  of  a  special  tax  of  one  hundred  dollars,  and  for  every  additional  thousand 
dollars  of  capital  an  additional  tax  of  two  dollars.  By  the  110th  section  of  the 
same  act  a  tax  of  one  twenty-fourth  of  one  per  cent,  per  month  was  laid  upon  the 
average  amount  of  deposits  held  by  the  associations ;  one  twenty-fourth  per  cent,  a 
month  upon  the  capital  beyond  the  amount  invested  in  United  States  bonds ;  one- 
twelfth  of  one  per  cent,  upon  the  average  amount  of  circulation  outstanding,  in 
cluding  as  circulation  certified  checks,  and  notes  or  other  obligations  intended  to 
circulate  as  money ;  and  one-sixth  of  one  per  cent,  a  month  upon  the  average  amount 
of  circulation  beyond  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  capital  of  the  bank ;  and  by  the  120th 
section  five  per  cent,  upon  all  dividends  either  of  scrip  or  money,  and  on  all  undis 
tributed  sums  made  or  added  during  the  year  to  their  surplus  or  contingent  funds. 
To  prevent  evasion  by  neglect  or  omission  to  make  dividends  or  addition  to  surplus 
or  contingent  funds  as  often  as  once  in  six  months,  a  return  of  profits  is  required  in 
January  and  July,  upon  which  a  duty  of  five  per  cent,  is  laid.  Bank-checks  are 
subject  to  a  stamp-duty  of  two  cents ;  promissory  notes  and  inland  bills  of  exchange 
five  cents  upon  each  one  hundred  or  fraction  of  one  hundred  dollars ;  letters  of 
credit  and  foreign  bills,  if  drawn  in  sets  of  three  or  more,two  cents  upon  each  one 
hundred  or  fraction  of  one  hundred  dollars ;  certificates  of  stock,  twenty-five  cents 
each  ;  certificates  of  profits  or  interest  in  the  bank,  if  for  not  less  than  ten  nor  more 
than  fifty  dollars,  ten  cents — exceeding  fifty  and  not  over  one  thousand  dollars, 
twenty-five  cents — for  every  additional  one  thousand  or  fraction  of  one  thousand, 
twenty-five  cents ;  certificates  of  deposit  for  sums  not  exceeding  one  hundred  dollars, 
two  cents — for  sums  exceeding  one  hundred  dollars  five  cents ;  upon  bills  or  mem 
orandums  of  sales  of  stocks,  gold,  etc.,  for  each  one  hundred  or  fractional  part  of 


ANALYSIS  OF  THE  VOTES.  307 

to  pay  to  the  United  States  Treasurer  in  January  and  July  of 
each  year  a  duty  of  one-half  of  one  per  centum  each  and  every 
half-year  from  and  after  the  1st  of  January,  1864,  upon  the 
average  amount  of  its  notes  in  circulation ;  one-quarter  of  one 
per  cent,  each  half-year  upon  the  average  amount  of  its  depos 
its  ;  and  one-quarter  of  one  per  cent,  upon  the  average  of  its 
capital  stock  beyond  the  amount  invested  in  United  States  bonds. 
The  shares  of  the  association  were  to  be  subject  to  taxation  by 
the  State  in  which  it  was  located  and  not  elsewhere,  but  taxes 
imposed  upon  the  shares  were  not  to  be  greater  than  those  as 
sessed  upon  other  moneyed  capital  in  the  hands  of  individual 
citizens  of  the  State,  nor  exceed  the  rate  paid  by  banks  organ 
ized  under  the  State  laws. 

9.  Provision  was  made  for  the  voluntary  closing  up  of  the 
business  of  the  association ;  and  the  United  States  Treasurer 
was  authorized  to  receive  from  such  association  lawful  money  to 
the  amount  of  its  circulating  notes  outstanding,1  and  to  deliver 
up  the  securities  pledged  for  their  security,  and  thereupon  to 
redeem  the  outstanding  notes  at  the  Treasury  and  to  destroy 
them  by  burning. 

10.  The  capitals  of  State  banks  converted  into  national  as 
sociations  were  not  to  be  less  than  those  of  associations  organ 
ized  directly  under  the  act. 

11.  The  privileges  of  the  act  were  to  continue  to  each  asso 
ciation  for  a  period  of  twenty  years  from  the  date  of  its  organ 
ization. 

An  analysis  of  the  votes  upon  the  passage  of  this  act  shows 
in  the  Senate — f  or  it  thirty  Republicans  ;  against  it  two  Repub 
licans  ;  and  of  the  Democrats  none  voted  for  it.  In  the  House 
the  vote  stood — for  the  bill  seventy-eight  Republicans ;  against 
it  none,  and  the  Democrats  voted  against  it  solidly. 

one  hundred  dollars,  one  cent ;  receipts  for  money  paid  in  excess  of  twenty  dollars, 
two  cents. 

1  Every  "  bank  going  into  liquidation  shall  be  required  to  deposit  lawful  money 
of  the  United  States  for  its  outstanding  circulation  within  six  months  from  the  date 
of  the  vote  to  go  into  liquidation,  whereupon  the  bonds  pledged  as  security  for  such 
circulation  shall  be  surrendered."  Failing  to  do  so  the  "Controller  shall  have 
power  to  sell  the  bonds  pledged  for  the  circulation  of  said  bank  at  public  auction  in 
New  York  City,"  to  provide  for  its  redemption  and  cancellation  and  the  necessary 
expenses  of  sale.  Banks  in  liquidation  for  the  purpose  of  consolidating  with  other 
banks  are  exempted  from  the  operation  of  this  act. 


308  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

In  his  second  annual  report  (dated  November  25, 1864)  the 
Controller  of  the  Currency  stated  the  number  of  associations 
organized  under  the  act  up  to  that  time  to  be  584;  of  these 
282  were  organized  since  his  first  report  of  which  168  were 
conversions  of  State  into  national  banks.  The  whole  capital 
stock  paid  in  was  $108,964,597.28 ;  their  aggregate  circulation 
was  $65,864,650,  for  the  security  of  which  bonds  of  the 
United  States  to  the  amount  of  $81,961,450  were  held  by  the 
Treasurer  of  the  United  States.  The  Controller  declared 
that  the  rapid  conversion  of  State  institutions  was  effected 
without  derangement  to  the  business  of  the  country  ;  and 
observed  that  though  there  were  objections  to  all  kinds  of  paper 
money  (the  experience  of  Americans  having  been  that  bank 
notes,  with  few  exceptions,  were  convertible  into  coin  when 
coin  was  not  wanted  and  were  not  convertible  when  coin  was 
wanted),  no  form  had  been  devised  so  little  objectionable  as  that 
authorized  by  the  national  currency 'Act.  And  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  (Mr.  Fessenden)  in  his  report  for  the  same  year, 
made  the  admission  that  though  he  was  not  among  the  first  to 
approve  the  plan,  time  and  observation  of  its  effects  had  con 
vinced  him  that  if  it  was  not  without  defects  it  was  based  upon 
sound  principles. 

Up  to  this  time  there  had  been  no  discriminating  legislation 
against  the  State  bank  issues.  Mr.  Fessenden,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  and  Mr.  McCulloch,  the  Controller  of  the  Cur 
rency,  in  the  reports  just  cited,  now  joined  in  urging  upon  Con 
gress  legislation  of  that  character.  "  It  was  quite  apparent," 
said  Mr.  Fessenden,  "that  the  good  to  be  hoped  from  the 
system  could  not  be  fully  realized  so  long  as  another  sys 
tem,  at  war  with  the  great  objects  to  be  attained,  should  con 
tinue  to  exist  unchecked  and  uncontrolled.  While  he  would 
not  recommend  the  adoption  of  unfriendly  or  severe  meas 
ures,  likely  to  embarrass  the  business  of  the  country,  ...  he 
was  of  the  opinion  that  such  discriminating  legislation  should 
be  had  as  would  induce  the  withdrawal  of  all  other  circulation 
than  that  issued  under  national  authority,  at  the  earliest  prac 
ticable  moment."  Mr.  McCulloch  declared  it  "  indispensable  to 
the  financial  success  of  the  Treasury  that  the  currency  of  the 
country  should  be  under  the  control  of  the  Government.  This 


OPERATION  OF  THE  ACT.  309 

could  not  be  the  case  so  long  as  State  institutions  had  the  right 
to  flood  the  country  with  their  issues."  He  concluded,  there 
fore,  that  "  it  could  hardly  be  considered  oppressive  if  Congress 
should  prohibit  the  further  issue  of  bank-notes  not  authorized 
by  itself,  and  compel  by  taxation  the  withdrawal  of  those  which 
had  been  already  issued." 

This  important  object  was  effected  by  the  sixth  section  in  the 
act  approved  March  3,  1865,  amendatory  of  the  Internal  Rev 
enue  Act  of  June  30,  1864.  This  section  provided  "  that 
every  national  banking  association,  State  bank,  or  State  banking 
association  should  pay  a  tax  of  ten  per  centum  on  the  amount  of 
the  notes  of  any  State  bank  or  State  banking  association  paid  out 
by  them  after  the  first  day  of  July,  1866."  *  In  the  Internal 
Revenue  Act  of  July  13,  1866,  this  provision  was  reenacted 
(section  9)  in  somewhat  more  sweeping  terms  :  "  Every  national 
banking  association,  State  bank,  or  State  banking  association, 
shall  pay  a  tax  of 'ten  per  centum  on  the  amount  of  notes  of 
any  person,  State  bank,  or  State  banking  association  used  for 
circulation,  and  paid  out  by  them  after  the  first  day  of  August, 
1866,  and  such  tax  shall  be  assessed  and  paid  in  such  manner  as 
shall  be  prescribed  by  the  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue."  * 

These  acts  were  effective  in  compelling  the  retirement  of  the 
State  bank  circulation,  and  the  Controller,  in  his  report  for 
1865,  declared  that  the  national  banking  system  had  superseded 
all  the  State  systems,  and  that  the  entire  control  of  the  cur 
rency  of  the  country  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Federal  Govern 
ment.  He  reported  at  the  same  time  that  there  were  in  opera- 

1  By  the  seventh  section  of  the  act  of  March  3,  1863,  "To  provide  ways  and 
means  for  the  support  of  the  Government,"  a  tax  of  one  per  cent,  per  annum  had 
been  imposed  upon  the  circulation  of  "  all  banks,  associations,  corporations,  and 
individuals "  in  certain  stated  proportions  to  their  capital,  and  two  per  cent,  per 
annum  upon  the  excess.     By  the  act  of  June  30,  1864,  this  tax  of  one  per  cent, 
•was  continued,  except  that  it  was  made  payable  monthly  in  installments  of  one- 
twelfth  of  one  per  cent. 

2  The  constitutionality  of  this  tax  upon  the  circulation  of  State  bank  notes  having 
been  brought  into  question,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  in  Veazie  Bank 
against  Fenno,  8  Wallace,  633,  declared  that  "  Congress  having  undertaken,  in  the 
exercise  of  undisputed  constitutional  power,  to  provide  a  currency  for  the  whole 
country,  may  constitutionally  secure  the  benefit  of  it  to  the  whole  people  by  appro 
priate  legislation,  and  to  that  end  may  restrain  by  suitable  enactments  the  circula 
tion  of  any  notes  not  issued  under  its  own  authority ; "  and  that  this  tax  is  warranted 
by  the  Constitution. 


310 


LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 


tion  sixteen  hundred  and  forty-seven  national  banks,  with  an 
aggregate  capital  of  four  hundred  and  eighteen  millions  of 
dollars,  owned  by  two  hundred  thousand  stockholders.  Their 
total  resources  on  the  1st  day  of  October  of  that  year  were 
§1,525,493,960,  with  liabilities  for  circulation  and  deposits 
amounting  to  §1,024,274,386 — leaving  a  surplus  for  capital  and 
earnings  of  $501,221,574.  The  increase  in  national  banking 
capital  paid  in  during  the  year  ending  October  1,  1866,  was 
stated  at  $21,515,557 ;  the  increase  in  amount  of  bonds  deposited 
to  secure  circulation  at  $56,247,750,  and  the  increase  in  amount 
of  circulation  issued  at  $101,824,698.  "While,  however,  the 
apparent  circulation  was  increased  by  over  one  hundred  mill 
ions,  the  actual  increase  did  not  much  exceed  fifty  millions ;  the 
circulation  retired  by  State  banks  converted  into  national  as 
sociations  having  been  fully  fifty  millions  of  dollars. 

....  As  a  fitting  close  to  this  chapter,  a  table  showing  the 
condition  of  the  national  banks  of  the  United  States  at  the  close 
of  business  on  Friday,  the  26th  of  December,  1873,  is  appended : 

EESOUECE8. 

Loans  and  discounts $852,620,661  35 

Overdrafts    .......  4,195,893  70 

United  States  bonds  to  secure  circulation       .  389,384,400  00 

United  States  bonds  to  secure  deposits       .  14,815,200  00 

United  States  bonds  on  hand           .        .        .  8,630,850  00 

Other  stocks,  bonds,  and  mortgages  .        .  24,358,125  06 

Due  from  redeeming  and  reserve  agents         .  73,032,046  87 

Due  from  other  national  banks    .        .        .  40,404,757  97 

Due  from  State  banks  and  bankers          .        .  11,185,253  08 

Heal  estate,  furniture,  and  fixtures       .        .  35,556,746  48 

Current  expenses 8,678,170  39 

Premiums  paid 7,987,707  14 

Checks  and  other  cash  items            .        .        .  12,321,972  80 

Exchanges  for  Clearing-House    .        .        .  62,881,342  16 

Bills  of  other  national  banks  .        .        .        .  21,371,456  00 

Bills  of  State  banks 31,723  00 

Fractional  currency 2,287,454  03 

Specie 26,907,037  58 

Legal-tender  notes 104,922,506  00 

United  States  certificates  of  deposit  for  legal- 
tender  notes      24,010,00  00 

Clearing-House  loan  certificates       .        .        .  8,797,000  00 

Total                           .  $1,729,380,303  61 


CONDITION  OF  NATIONAL  BANKS. 


311 


LIABILITIES. 

Capital  stock  paid  in $490,266,611  00 

Surplus  fund 120,967,767  91 

Undivided  profits 58,375,169  43 

National  bank-notes  outstanding        .        .  341,320,256  00 

State  bank-notes  outstanding           .        .        .  1,130,585  00 

Dividends  unpaid 1,269,474  74 

Individual  deposits 540,504,102  78 

United  States  deposits         ....  7,680,375  26 
Deposits    of    the    United   States    disbursing 

officers 4,705,593  36 

Due  to  national  banks          ....  114,990,666  54 

Due  to  State  banks  and  bankers     .        .        .  36,598,076  29 

Notes  and  bills  rediscounted       .        .        .  3,811,487  89 

Bills  payable 8,826,137  41 

Due  to  Clearing-House  for  loan  certificates .  3,928,000  00 


Total 


.    $1,729,380,303  61 


CHAPTEK    XXXIII. 

THE  MORRILL  TARD7F — TARIFF  AMENDMENTS — GENERAL  REVISION 

OF    THE    TARIFF    OF    1861 TARIFF    RECEIPTS  —  INTERNAL 

REVENUE    BUREAU    CREATED THE    DIRECT    TAX INCOME 

FROM  INTERNAL  REVENUE — €OMMERCE  BETWEEN  LOYAL  AND 
INSURGENT  STATES — EMBARRASSMENT  OF  THE  SUBJECT — MR. 
CHASE'S  VIEWS — PROCLAMATION  OF  BLOCKADE,  AND  SUSPEN 
SION  OF  INTERNAL  COMMERCE  BY  THE  PRESIDENT ACTS  OF 

CONGRESS   ON  THE  SUBJECT — POLICY   OF   MR.    CHASE "TRADE 

SHALL  FOLLOW  THE  FLAG" — ADVANCE  IN  THE  PRICE  OF 
COTTON,  AND'  ABUSES  OCCASIONED  BY  EAGER  DESDSE  FOR 
TRAFFIC — NECESSITY  OF  THE  INTERNAL  COMMERCE — REGULA 
TIONS  FOR  ITS  GOVERNMENT ORIGIN  OF  FREEDMEN's  BU 
REAU — MAGNITUDE  OF  THE  INTERNAL  COMMERCE  SYSTEM 

CORRUPTION    AMONG   THE   OFFICERS A   PAINFUL   INSTANCE   OF 

THIS. 

THE  "  Morrill  tariff,"  as  it  is  historically  called,  became  a 
law  by  receiving  the  signature  of  President  Buchanan  on 
the  2d  of  March,  1861,  and  was  to  go  into  operation  on  the  1st 
day  of  April  following.  The  tariff  act  in  force  at  the  date  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  first  inauguration  was  that  of  March  3,  1857. 
The  Morrill  tariff  was  amended  in  important  particulars,  as  we 
have  seen  in  a  former  chapter,  by  the  act  of  August  5,  1861, 
under  which  heavy  duties  were  laid  on  teas,  coffees,  sugars  and 
molasses,  substantially  as  recommended  by  Mr.  Chase ;  and  this 
act,  in  its  turn,  was  materially  modified  by  that  of  the  24th  of 
December,  1861,  by  which  the  duties  on  the  specific  articles 
named  were  further  increased,  as  were  also  those  upon  some 
other  articles.  This  latter  act  was  also  framed  chiefly  in  accord- 


TARIFF  MEASURES.  313 

ance  with  recommendations  made  by  Mr.  Chase.  There  was  no 
general  revision  of  the  tariff,  however,  until  June,  1862,  when 
a  considerable  increase  in  the  rates  was  laid  upon  the  whole 
range  of  imported  commodities,  and  an  additional  tonnage  tax 
was  levied  upon  both  American  and  foreign  vessels.  An  act 
modifying  some  of  the  provisions  of  this  last-mentioned  act,  was 
approved  by  the  President  March  3,  1863.  And  by  a  joint 
resolution  of  the  29th  of  April,1  1864,  the  duties  on  all  foreign 
goods — printing-paper  for  books  and  newspapers  excepted — 
were  increased  fifty  per  cent,  for  sixty  days ;  a  measure  fortu 
nate  for  some  importers  and  merchants,  and  quite  as  unfortunate 
for  others.  But  the  anxious  solicitude  of  Congress  that  the 
educational  improvement  of  the  American  people  should  not 
be  impeded  by  this  sort  of  "  snap  "  legislation,  is  witnessed  in 
the  exemption  of  printing-paper  from  the  operation  of  the 
resolution. 

These  were  the  several  tariff  measures  acted  upon  by  Con 
gress  during  Mr.  Chase's  services  in  the  Treasury.  On  the  30th 
of  June,  1864,  however,  the  President  approved  an  act  for  a 
further  augmentation  of  the  rates  of  duties ;  the  primary  object 
of  this  act  being,  as  explained  by  Mr.  Morrill,  "  to  increase  the 
revenue  upon  importations  from  abroad,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  shelter  and  nurse  our  domestic  products,  from  which  we 

1  This  joint  resolution  came  near  being  attended  by  some  awkward  circum- 
^stances.  It  took  effect  on  the  29th  of  April,  1864,  and,  as  its  operation  was  limited  to 
sixty  days,  it  would  cease  to  be  effective  of  course  on  the  28th  of  June  subsequent. 
It  was  supposed  at  the  time  of  its  passage  that  a  tariff  bill  then  in  course  of  prepa 
ration  in  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  would,  within  the  specified  sixty  days, 
become  a  law.  But  it  happened  otherwise  ;  the  act  of  June  30, 1864,  was  to  become 
operative  July  1st ;  meantime,  on  the  29th  and  30th  of  June,  the  import  duties  would 
be  fifty  per  cent,  less  than  on  the  28th,  and  an  average  of  about  fifty  per  cent,  less 
than  they  would  be  on  the  1st  of  July.  This  curious  condition  of  the  tariff  act  was 
overlooked  until  near  the  close  of  the  sitting  of  Congress,  on  the  28th  of  June, 
when  the  Secretary  became  aware  of  it.  Accompanied  by  Assistant-Secretary  Field, 
Mr.  Chase  went  at  once  to  the  Capitol,  and  by  interrupting  the  regular  course  of  the 
proceedings,  procured  such  action  by  Congress  upon  the  joint  resolution  as  extended 
its  operation  over  to  the  1st  of  July.  Near  midnight  Mr.  Lincoln  approved  the  ex 
tension  by  attaching  his  signature  to  the  renewed  resolution,  the  operation  of  which 
was  confined  to  two  days ! — a  rather  remarkable  incident  in  our  national  legisla 
tion — and  a  few  minutes  later  Mr.  Field  delivered  the  completed  resolution  into 
the  hands  of  Mr.  Seward,  at  his  residence,  thus  placing  it  in  the  custody  of  the  State 
Department  and  completing  all  the  necessary  legal  preliminaries. 


314  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

draw  the  largest  part  of  our  revenue,  so  that  the  aggregate 
amount  shall  not  be  diminished  through  the  substitution  of 
foreign  articles  for  those  which  we  have  been  accustomed  to 
make  at  home." 

The  prospect  of  a  civil  war  near  at  hand  had  occasioned  a 
large  falling  off  in  the  income  from  customs,  even  before  Mr. 
Lincoln's  inauguration.  The  actual  presence  of  war  operated 
still  more  calamitously  upon  the  revenues  from  this  source. 
The  receipts  for  the  first  quarter  of  the  fiscal  year  1861 — it 
ended  on  the  30th  of  September,  1860 — were  somewhat  more 
than  sixteen  millions  of  dollars  ($16,119,831) ;  during  the  second 
quarter,  ending  December  30,  1860 — the  presidential  election 
intervening  meantime — they  were  reduced  to  $8,174,167 ;  there 
was  a  slight  increase  during  the  third  quarter,  ending  March  31, 
1861,  when  they  were  $9,772,574;  and  reached  their  lowest 
point  during  the  fourth  quarter,  which  ended  June  30,  1861, 
when  they  were  only  $5,515,552  ;  making  a  total  of  $39,582,124 
for  the  whole  year.  Mr.  Chase,  in  his  report  for  December, 
1861,  basing  his  conclusions  for  the  fiscal  year  1862  upon  the 
receipts  of  the  first  quarter  ending  September,  1861  (which 
were  $7,198,602),  estimated  that  the  whole  receipts  up  to  the 
30th  of  June,  1862,  would  not  exceed  $32,198,602.  The  actual 
receipts,  however  —  in  consequence  of  the  renewed  impetus 
given  to  commerce  and  production  by  the  extensive  demand 
for  commodities  created  by  the  war — were  $49,056,397.  For 
the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1863,  they  were  $69,059,399^ 
and  for  that  ending  on  the  30th  of  June,  1864,  they  were 
$102,316,152 ;  a  very  great  and  important  increase  in  the  cus 
toms  revenues. 

Additional  methods  of  permanent  revenue  were  necessary ; 
and  accordingly  the  Internal  Revenue  Bureau  was  created  by 
an  act  of  Congress,  approved  by  the  President  July  1, 1862. 
The  germ  of  this  bureau  will  be  found  in  the  act  of  August  5, 
1861,  "  to  provide  increased  revenue  from  imports  to  pay  inter 
est  on  the  public  debt,  and  for  other  purposes."  It  was  in  this 
act  that  provision  was  made  for  the  levy  of  a  direct  tax  of 
twenty  millions,  and  the  appointment  of  Federal  officers  for 
its  assessment  and  collection.  By  the  fifty -sixth  section 
the  President,  upon  the  nomination  of  the  Secretary  of  the 


INTERNAL  REVENUE  BUREAU.  315 

Treasury,  was  authorized  to  appoint  an  officer  to  be  called  the 
"  Commissioner  of  Taxes,"  who  was  to  be  charged,  under  the 
direction  of  the  Secretary,  with  the  general  superintendence 
of  the  officers  and  method  of  collecting  the  direct  taxes.  He 
was  to  have  a  salary  of  $3,000  a  year,  and  the  Secretary  was 
directed  to  assign  to  the  Commissioner  the  necessary  clerks, 
whose  aggregate  salaries  were  not  to  exceed  $6,000  a  year.  It 
does  not  appear,  however,  that  a  Commissioner  of  Taxes  was 
ever  appointed. 

For  the  collection  of  the  direct  taxes  in  the  insurrectionary 
districts,  a  special  system  was  devised,  under  which  a  board  of 
three  tax  commissioners  was  appointed  in  each  one  of  the  States 
in  which  rebellion  was  declared  to  exist  by  proclamation  of  the 
President.  These  commissioners  were  to  enter  upon  their  duties 
in  the  several  States  to  which  they  were  sent,  whenever  the 
commanding  general  of  the  forces  of  the  United  States,  entering 
into  any  insurrectionary  State  or  district,  should,  in  any  parish, 
county  or  district  of  the  same,  have  established  the  national 
military  authority.  The  commissioners  were  accordingly  ap 
pointed  in  some  districts ;  but  most  of  them  spent  their  time 
quarreling  with  each  other,  and  in  sending  private  letters  to 
the  Secretary  extolling  their  own  industry  and  usefulness,  and 
complaining  at  the  same  time  of  the  sloth  and  incapacity  of 
their  associates.  The  system  was  not  a  successful  one. 

The  act  establishing  an  Internal  Revenue  Bureau  in  the 
Treasury  Department,  authorized  the  President  to  appoint,  not 
a  Commissioner  of  Taxes,  but  a  Commissioner  of  Internal 
Revenue,  whose  nomination  was  to  be  confirmed  by  the  Senate. 
Hi  a  salary  was  fixed  at  $4,000  a  year,  and  his  duties  were  to  be 
performed  under  the  direction  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
He  was  to  be  furnished  of  course  with  clerks,  in  number  large 
enough  to  transact  the  business  of  his  office.  For  the  purpose 
of  "  assessing,  levying  and  collecting  the  duties  or  taxes  pre 
scribed  by  the  act,"  the  President  was  authorized  to  divide  the 
States  and  Territories  into  convenient  collection  districts,  and  to 
nominate  to  the  Senate  an  assessor  and  collector  for  each  dis 
trict.  The  duties  of  these  officers  are  sufficiently  indicated  by 
their  titles. 

It  was  supposed  that  the  taxes  laid  by  the  act  would  yield  a 


316  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

yearly  revenue  of  about  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  They 
were  laid  chiefly  upon  spirits ;  ale,  beer  and  porter ;  on  licenses 
for  carrying  on  certain  trades  and  businesses  ;  on  manufactures, 
and  on  manufactured  articles  and  products ;  on  auction-sales ; 
on  carriages,  yachts,  billiard-tables,  and  plate ;  on  slaughtered 
cattle ;  on  railroads,  steamboats,  and  ferry-boats ;  on  railroad 
bonds ;  on  banks,  trust-companies,  savings  institutions,  and  in 
surance  companies ;  on  salaries  and  pay  of  officers  and  persons 
in  the  service  of  the  United  States,  and  passports ;  on  advertise 
ments  ;  on  incomes  ;  on  legacies  and  distributive  shares  of  per 
sonal  property.  It  provided  also  for  a  comprehensive  system 
of  stamp  duties. 

The  Bureau  was  promptly  organized  by  the  appointment  of 
a  commissioner,  who  entered  upon  the  duties  of  his  office  July 
17, 1862,  and  the  appointment  of  the  authorized  subordinates. 
The  receipts  of  the  office,  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30, 1863, 
were  $37,640,787.95  ;  and  in  his  report  for  that  year,  submitted 
November  30,  1863,  the  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue — 
in  a  burst  of  patriotic  enthusiasm — informed  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  that  the  "  tax  laws  had  not  only  been  endured,  but  on 
the  whole,  had  been  welcomed  l  by  the  people ! "  The  receipts 
for  the  second  fiscal  year  of  the  existence  of  the  Bureau,  ending 
on  the  30th  of  June,  1864,  were  $109,741,134.10.  The  income 
of  the  Government  from  both  customs  and  internal  revenues 
in  the  two  years  ending  June  30,  1864,  was  $318,756,474.04, 
or  only  about  eight  millions  more  than  the  receipts  from  inter 
nal  revenue  alone  in  the  year  1866,  when  they  reached  a  total 
of  $310,906,984.17. 

The  original  internal  revenue  act  was  amended  or  modified 
by  the  subsequent  acts  of  March  3,  1863,  May  7  and  June 
30, 1864.  By  the  act  of  May  7th,  the  duty  on  distilled  spirits 
was  fixed  at  sixty  cents  per  gallon,  in  lieu  of  the  former  tax  but 
in  addition  to  license  duties ;  and  by  that  of  June  30th,  the  duty 
on  distilled  spirits  was  increased  to  $1.50  per  gallon  after  the 
passage  of  the  act,  and  to  two  dollars  per  gallon  after  the  1st 
day  of  February,  1865.  The  duty  on  ale  and  beer  was  at  the 
same  time  fixed  at  one  dollar  per  gallon.  These  largely  en- 

1  It  is  rather  more  likely  that,  in  the  spirit  of  Burns's  song,  they  prayed,  "  May 
the  de'il  dance  away  wi'  the  exciseman  ! " 


COMMERCE  BETWEEN  STATES.  317 

lianced  taxes  were  of  doubtful  policy,  for,  while  they  increased 
the  revenue,  they  led  to  enormous  frauds  and  an  appalling  ag 
gregate  of  perjury  and  corruption. 

In  connection  with  the  general  subject  of  revenue,  Mr.  Chase 
thought  it  his  duty,  in  his  report  made  at  the  extraordinary  ses 
sion  of  Congress,  in  July,  1861,  to  invite  the  attention  of  that 
body  to  the  condition  of  our  foreign  commerce,  and  especially 
to  commerce  between  the  States  as  affected  by  the  rebellion. 
At  the  ports  of  several  of  the  States,  he  said,  the  collection  of 
duties  on  foreign  goods  had  been  obstructed  and  prevented  dur 
ing  several  months.  This  condition  of  affairs,  and  the  admis 
sion  of  imported  merchandise  into  those  ports  without  payment 
of  duties  to  the  United  States,  had  given  opportunity  for  many 
frauds  upon  the  revenue,  and  necessarily  had  occasioned  serious* 
harmful  disturbance  to  the  regular  commerce  of  the  country. 
It  was  the  province  of  Congress  to  apply  the  proper  remedies ; 
and  he  suggested  that  these  remedies  might  be  found  in  closing 
the  ports  where  the  collection  of  duties  was  disturbed,  or  by 
providing  for  their  collection  on  shipboard,  or  elsewhere  beyond 
the  reach  of  obstruction.  Every  independent  nation,  he  ob 
served,  had  a  right  to  determine  what  ports  within  its  territorial 
limits  should  be,  and  what  ports  should  not  be,  open  to  foreign 
commerce ;  and  nothing  could  be  clearer,  where,  one  or  more 
ports  might  be  temporarily  in  possession  of  insurgents  against 
the  Government,  than  that  suitable  regulations  might  be  pre 
scribed  by  the  proper  authorities  to  guard  the  revenue  against 
diminution  by  adequate  provision  for  its  collection  elsewhere 
than  within  the  port,  or  for  depriving  the  port  itself  of  its  char 
acter  as  a  port  of  entry  or  delivery  until  the  insurrection  was 
suppressed. 

Great  damage  and  inconvenience  to  the  commerce  between 
the  States  had  arisen  from  the  same  general  cause.  To  mitigate 
those  evils  and  to  prevent,  as  far  as  possible,  the  perversion  of 
commerce  between  the  States  into  an  agency  for  the  supply  of 
the  insurgents  with  means  for  maintaining  and  extending  the 
insurrection,  the  Secretary  said  he  had  issued  two  circular  orders 
to  collectors,  copies  of  which  he  submitted. 

In  framing  those  orders,  he  said  he  was  necessarily  much 
embarrassed  by  the  absence  of  any  laws  regulating  commerce 


318  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

among  the  States,  and  by  the  necessity  of  conforming  them  to 
conditions  of  hostility  created  by  the  insurrection.  These  con 
ditions,  under  some  circumstances,  would  make  all  commerce 
illegal ;  while,  under  other  circumstances,  they  would  only  make 
unlawful  commerce  carried  on  directly  with  insurgents.  In  or 
der  to  remove  embarrassment,  legislation  was  required ;  and  Mr. 
Chase  recommended  a  suitable  enactment  giving  to  the  Presi 
dent  power  to  determine,  by  proclamation  or  other  notification, 
within  what  limits  an  insurrection  had  obtained,  for  the  time, 
controlling  ascendency,  and  should  therefore  be  regarded  as  at 
tended  by  the  effects  of  civil  war  in  the  total  suspension  of  com 
merce,  and  to  establish  by  license  such  exceptions  as  he  might 
deem  expedient  and  practicable.  Such  an  enactment  should 
also  provide  penalties  and  forfeitures  for  attempts  to  carry  on 
unlicensed  commerce  with  insurgents  or  places  declared  to  be  in 
insurrection. 

This  question  of  commercial  intercourse  between  citizens  of 
the  Federal  and  insurgent  States,  immediately  upon  the  break 
ing  out  of  hostilities,  became  one  of  extreme  embarrassment 
to  the  Government,  and,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Chase,  of 
"  much  and  painful  consideration."  It  was  of  special  and  great 
importance  along  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  Rivers,  and  in  West 
Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri.  Abundant  supplies  from  the 
North  found  their  way  into  the  insurgent  lines,  and  it  speedily 
became  apparent  that  the  whole  commerce  in  those  districts 
would  be  carried  on  in  the  interest  of  rebellion.  Whether  ut 
terly  to  prohibit  trade,  or  allow  it  under  restrictions,  was  anx 
iously  debated.  The  character  of  the  population  greatly  com 
plicated  the  subject.  Many  were  rebels,  but  many  also  were 
loyal,  and  to  give  protection  and  encouragement  to  those  who 
adhered  to  the  Union,  was  rightly  thought  to  be  a  matter  alike 
of  political  duty  and  of  sound  policy.  At  the  same  time,  it  was 
the  sincere  desire  of  the  Administration  to  treat  the  insurgents 
with  all  possible  forbearance ;  nor  was  the  question  free  from 
aspects  of  constitutional  obligation.  Chief-Justice  Taney  after 
ward  decided,  in  an  opinion  of  great  ability,  that  commerce 
between  the  States  could  not  constitutionally  be  prohibited  nor 
restricted  by  acts  of  Congress ;  and  the  abstract  correctness  of  his 
judgment  was  not  questioned.  "I  have  little  doubt,"  wrote 


BLOCKADE  OF  SOUTHERN  PORTS.  319 

Mr.  Chase  to  William  P.  Mellen,  on  the  29th  of  May,  1861, 
"that  the  exchange  of  provisions  and  supplies,  except  muni 
tions  of  war  and  other  articles  usually  prohibited,  would  be  more 
useful  than  injurious.  The  difficulty,  however,  is  this:  The 
States  controlled  by  insurrectionists — especially  by  insurrection 
ists  exercising  the  powers  of  government  —  can  hardly  be  re 
garded  otherwise  than  as  hostile  communities,  with  which  the 
United  States  are,  for  the  time  being,  at  actual  war.  The  rules 
applicable  to  the  relations  of  war  must  of  necessity  be  applied. 
If  war  existed  between  this  country  and  England,  no  trade  what 
ever  would  be  permitted.  American  property  shipped  to  Eng 
land,  and  English  property  shipped  to  America,  would  be  liable 
to  seizure.  Constant  experience  teaches  us  that  property  shipped 
to  the  insurgent  States  is  liable  to  seizure  *  and  is  constantly 
seized ;  and  if  the  property  of  the  citizens  of  those  States,  shipped 
into  the  United  States,  is  not  seized,  it  is  simply  because  the 
Federal  Government  desires  to  treat  them,  so  far  as  practicable, 
not  as  enemies  but  as  citizens.  I  see  no  way  in  which  safe  in 
tercourse  can  be  established  between  citizens  of  the  loyal  States 
and  those  under  insurgent  control.  The  question  is  not  one  of 
revenue  nor  one  of  rights  in  a  state  of  peace  ;  but  a  question  of 
supplies  to  enemies,  and  unhappily  must  be  controlled  by  con 
siderations  belonging  to  a  state  of  war.  The  best  thing  to  be 
done,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  to  establish  the  power  of  the  Govern 
ment,  in  cooperation  with  the  people  of  Kentucky  and  "Western 
Virginia,  within  those  limits,  and  let  commerce  follow  the  flag. 
This  policy  opens  Missouri,  Kentucky,  and  Western  Virginia  to 
the  trade,  and  will  extend  southward  as  rapidly  and  as  far  as  the 
authority  of  the  Federal  Government  is  restored." 

Already,  on  the  19th  of  April,  1861,  the  President  had 
issued  a  proclamation  declaring  the  ports  of  South  Carolina, 
Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  and  Texas, 
under  blockade,  and  on  the  27th  of  the  same  month,  by  another 
proclamation,  had  laid  a  blockade  upon  the  ports  of  Korth  Caro 
lina  and  Virginia  also.  It  was  in  pursuance  of  the  requirements 
of  the  blockade  thus  established  that  the  Secretary  issued  the 
circular  orders  to  collectors  of  customs  referred  to  above.  The 
first  of  these  orders,  dated  the  2d  of  May,  1861,  instructed  the 

1  This  was  done  by  Confederate  officers  or  agents. 


320  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

seizure  for  confiscation  of  all  arms,  munitions  of  war,  provisions, 
and  other  supplies  to  persons  and  parties  in  those  States  or  dis 
tricts  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States.  But  this  order  re 
lated  only  to  shipments  over  internal  water-courses  and  by  sea. 
The  second  order,  under  date  of  June  12, 1861,  was  in  its  effects 
a  modification  of  the  first ;  the  intention  of  the  department  be 
ing,  as  was  stated,  "  to  leave  the  owners  of  all  property  perfectly 
free  to  control  it  in  such  manner  as  they  see  fit,  without  inter 
ference  or  detention  by  the  officers  of  the  Federal  Government, 
except  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  any  use  or  disposal  of  such 
property  for  the  aid  and  comfort  of  insurgents,  or  in  commerce 
with  States  or  places  controlled  by  insurgents." 

In  accordance  with  the  recommendations  of  his  report,  Con 
gress  made  provision  for  the  regulation  of  commercial  inter 
course  between  the  loyal  and  insurgent  States,  upon  land  as  well 
as  by  water,  by  promptly  passing — on  the  13th  of  July,  1861 — 
a  bill  prepared  and  submitted  by  the  Secretary.  The  fifth  sec 
tion  of  this  act  empowered  the  President,  under  the  certain  cir 
cumstances  of  insurrection  specified  in  it,  to  issue  his  proclama 
tion  declaring  the  existence  of  such  insurrection,  and  to  desig 
nate  the  State  or  States  in  which  it  existed,  "  and  thereupon,  all 
commercial  intercourse  by  and  between  the  same  and  the  citi 
zens  thereof,  and  the  citizens  of  the  rest  of  the  United  States, 
shall  cease  and  be  unlawful  so  long  as  such  condition  of  hostility 
shall  continue ;  and  all  goods  and  chattels,  wares  and  merchan 
dise,  coming  from  said  State  or  section  into  the  other  parts  of 
the  United  States,  and  all  proceeding  to  such  State  or  section 
by  land  or  water  shall,  together  with  the  vessel  or  vehicle  con 
veying  the  same,  or  conveying  persons  to  or  from  such  State  or 
section,  be  forfeited  to  the  United  States."  But  the  President 
was  at  the  same  time  authorized  to  license  and  permit  commer 
cial  intercourse  with  any  part  of  said  State  or  section,  the  in 
habitants  of  which  were  declared  to  be  in  a  state  of  insurrec 
tion,  in  such  articles  and  for  such  time  and  by  such  persons,  as 
he,  in  his  discretion,  might  think  most  conducive  to  the  public 
interest ;  and  the  intercourse  so  licensed  by  the  President  was  to 
be  conducted  and  carried  on  only  in  pursuance  of  rules  and 
regulations  to  be  prescribed  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
The  Secretary  was  authorized  to  appoint  such  officers,  at  places 


THE  INTERNAL  COMMERCE.  321 

where  there  were  no  officers  of  the  customs,  as  might  be  needed 
to  cany  into  effect  the  licenses  and  rules  and  regulations  made 
in  pursuance  of  the  law. 

But  it  was  not  thought  advisable  at  once  to  establish  any 
general  rules  and  regulations  for  the  restricted  trade  authorized 
by  the  act.  In  a  few  instances  licenses  were  granted  to  convey 
particular  articles  into  insurrectionary  States,  and  to  carry  on  a 
limited  trade  with  parts  of  Eastern  Virginia  inhabited  by  loyal 
people ;  otherwise,  so  far  as  it  was  possible  to  do,  the  prohibi 
tion  of  the  act  was  enforced  to  its  full  extent.  But  to  avoid 
the  suffering  and  practical  inconveniences  which  attended  upon 
a  total  suspension  of  commerce,  the  Secretary,  with  the  appro 
bation  of  the  President,  established  regulations  in  accordance 
with  which  cotton,  rice,  and  other  articles  of  property  collected 
in  insurgent  districts  occupied  by  Union  troops,  were  forwarded 
to  New  York  and  were  there  sold.  The  sales  were  made  for  ac 
count  of  the  Government,  and  the  proceeds  paid  into  the  national 
Treasury.  The  -general  rule  in  the  judgment  of  the  Secretary 
was,  however,  that  "  trade  should  follow  the  flag,"  and  whenever 
the  authority  of  the  Union  was  fully  restored  in  districts  suffi 
ciently  extensive  for  the  reestablishment  of  loyal  government, 
so  as  to  afford  adequate  guarantee  against  abuses  in  furnishing 
aid  and  comfort  to  rebellion,  that  the  parts  should  be  opened 
and  all  commerce  be  freely  allowed. 

In  1862  (act  of  May  20th),  the  powers  of  the  Treasury  De 
partment,  in  respect  of  this  internal  trade,  were  still  further  en 
larged,  and  the  Secretary  was  empowered  to  prohibit  and  pre 
vent  the  transportation  in  any  vessel,  or  upon  any  railroad,  turn 
pike,  or  other  road  or  means  of  transportation  within  the  United 
States,  of  any  goods,  wares,  or  merchandise  of  whatever  charac 
ter,  and  whatever  their  ostensible  destination,  in  all  cases  where 
there  should  be  satisfactory  reasons  for  believing  that  such  arti 
cles  were  intended  for  any  place  in  the  possession  or  under  the 
control  of  insurgents,  or  where  there  was  imminent  danger  that 
such  articles  would  fall  into  the  possession  or  control  of  insur 
gents  ;  and  in  cases  where  he  thought  it  expedient  to  do  so, 
he  might  require  reasonable  security  that  such  articles  should 
not  be  transported  to  any  place  under  insurrectionary  control, 
nor  in  any  way  used  to  give  aid  and  comfort  to  insurgents ;  and 
21 


322  LIFE  OP  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

violation  of  the  act  was  to  work  forfeiture  of  the  articles  trans 
ported. 

Again,  by  the  act  of  March  12, 1863,  the  powers  and  du 
ties  of  the  Secretary  were  still  further  augmented,  but  now  with 
special  reference  to  property  captured  and  abandoned  in  the  in 
surgent  States.  The  Secretary  was  authorized  to  appoint  a 
special  agent  or  agents  to  "  receive  and  collect  all  abandoned 
property  in  any  State  or  Territory,  or  any  portion  of  any  State 
or  Territory  designated  as  in  insurrection  against  the  lawful  Gov 
ernment  of  the  United  States ; "  and  all  property  coming  into 
any  of  the  United  States  not  declared  to  be  in  insurrection  from 
within  any  of  the  States  declared  to  be  in  insurrection,  through 
or  by  any  other  person  other  than  an  agent  of  the  Treasury 
duly  appointed,  or  under  a  lawful  clearance,  was  to  be  confis 
cated.  And  it  was  made  the  duty  of  every  officer  and  private 
of  the  army,  and  officer  and  sailor  of  the  navy,  and  every  ma 
rine,  who  might  take  or  receive  any  cotton,  rice,  sugar,  or  tobac 
co,  from  persons  in  the  insurgent  districts,  to  turn  it  over  to  the 
authorized  agent  of  the  Treasury ;  and  suitable  penalties  were 
provided  in  cases  of  failure  to  fulfill  the  law. 

Meantime,  the  rapid  and  extraordinary  advance  in  the  prices 
of  cotton  and  tobacco  especially,  and  of  other  Southern  products, 
and  the  certainty  of  large  gains  made  in  the  traffic  in  those  arti 
cles,  excited  an  eager  cupidity,  and  a  multitude  of  daring  specu 
lators  engaged  in  the  trade.  Cotton  (middling)  sold  in  Decem 
ber,  1860,  at  ten  cents  a  pound ;  in  December,  1861,  it  had  ad 
vanced  to  28  cents ;  December,  1862,  it  sold  at  68  cents ;  in  De 
cember,  1863,  it  had  risen  to  84  cents ;  and  in  1865  it  had  reached 
the  extraordinary  figure  of  120  cents  per  pound  !  It  is  not  an 
astonishing  circumstance,  therefore,  that  the  prospect  of  sudden 
fortune  made  in  cotton,  attracted  into  that  traffic  thousands  of 
bold  and  adventurous  men.  They  infested  the  armies  and  cor 
rupted  the  army  officers.  They  penetrated  through  our  own  mili 
tary  lines  into  the  enemy's  country,  and  communicated  informa 
tion  and  furnished  rebels  with  supplies.  General  Canby,  writing 
from  New  Orleans  in  1864,  declared  that  there  were  ten  thou 
sand  men  within  our  lines  who  were  stimulated  into  active  opposi 
tion  to  the  successful  prosecution  of  the  war,  by  the  cotton-traffic. 
These  men,  he  said,  had  a  prospective  hope  of  interest  in  every 


EVILS  OF  TEE  COTTON  TRAFFIC.  323 

bale  in  the  rebel  country ;  and  as  they  knew  that  Federal  mili 
tary  expeditions  were  followed  by  the  capture  or  destruction  of 
cotton,  they  sought  to  prevent  them  by  giving  to  the  insurgents 
information  of  every  contemplated  movement.  He  had  not 
sent  out  a  single  expedition  without  finding  agents  of  this  kind 
in  communication  with  the  enemy,  nor  one  in  which  he  had  not 
been  foiled,  to  some  extent,  by  their  acts.  The  rebel  armies 
both  east  and  west  of  the  Mississippi,  during  the  preceding 
twelve  months,  had  been  largely  supported  by  this  unlawful 
traffic.  He  said  that  if  it  was  carried  on  in  the  manner  and  to 
the  extent  claimed  by  those  who  controlled  it,  the  inevitable 
result,  in  his  judgment,  must  be  to  give  strength  and  efficiency 
to  the  rebel  army  equivalent  to  an  addition  of  fifty  thousand 
men.  He  had  captured  a  number  of  these  agents,  and  had 
them  in  custody  awaiting  trial ;  but  their  punishment  would  be 
no  compensation  for  the  evil  they  had  occasioned,  and  would 
not  secure  the  country  from  future  disasters  from  the  same 
cause.  General  Grant,  in  a  letter  written  to  Mr.  Chase  on  the 
21st  of  July,  1863,  from  his  headquarters  at  Yicksburg,  said : 
"  My  experience  in  "West  Tennessee  is  that  any  trade  whatever 
with  the  rebellious  States  is  weakening  us  to  at  least  33  per 
cent,  of  our  force.  No  matter  what  the  restrictions  thrown 
around  trade,  if  any  whatever  is  allowed,  it  will  be  made  the 
means  of  supplying  to  the  enemy  what  they  want.  Restrictions, 
if  lived  up  to,  make  trade  unprofitable,  and  hence  none  but  dis 
honest  men  go  into  it.  I.  venture  to  say  that  no  honest  man  has 
made  money  in  "West  Tennessee  in  the  last  year,  while  many 
fortunes  have  been  made  there  during  that  time."  The  same 
complaints  were  made  by  other  general  officers  of  the  army  in 
the  South  and  West  and  even  on  the  Atlantic  coast.  It  is  proba 
bly  no  exaggerated  estimate  that  from  the  beginning  to  the  end 
of  the  war  the  surreptitious  traffic  thus  carried  on  reached,  at 
the  least,  an  aggregate  of  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  Of 
course  the  Treasury  policy  and  administration  were  severely  as 
sailed  as  the  cause  of  it.  But  whether,  in  the  absence  of  any 
restrictions  imposed  by  the  civil  authority  and  in  the  presence 
of  an  absolute  freedom  of  commerce  in  those  districts  in  the  in 
surgent  States  reoccupied  by  the  Federal  troops,  the  abuses  com 
plained  of  would  have  been  less,  may  well  be  doubted.  On  the 


324  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

other  hand,  it  was  clearly  the  duty  as  well  as  the  policy  of  the 
Government  to  revive  trade  as  rapidly  as  the  authority  of  the 
Union  was  reestablished.  Large  populations  dwelt  in  the  recov 
ered  districts,  and  almost  every  means  of  subsistence  was  taken 
from  them  by  the  ravages  of  contending  armies.  To  leave  them 
without  any  appliances  for  procuring  the  necessaries  of  life  was 
impossible ;  to  allow  unrestricted  traffic  was  to  invite  those  very 
abuses  which  the  army  authorities  seemed  unable  to  prevent, 
even  with  the  aid  of  the  civil  police  power,  and  was  equally  im 
possible.  For  a  period  the  whole  subject  was  almost  exclusively 
under  the  military  control,  and  with  no  better  results  than  when 
it  afterward  was  devolved  exclusively  upon  Treasury  agents. 
The  jurisdiction  of  the  Secretary  at  no  time  extended  into  or 
beyond  the  lines  of  the  army.  The  whole  difficulty  seemed  to 
have  been,  after  all,  a  want  of  that  severe  and  rigorous  discipline 
within  our  military  lines  which  alone  makes  an  army  entirely 
effective.  General  Butler  hung  Mumford  for  tearing  down  the 
Federal  flag  at  New  Orleans ;  at  the  worst  a  venial  offence,  com 
mitted  in  a  fever  of  Southern  patriotism ;  but  no  trafficker  in  cot 
ton — whose  motives  were  purely  sordid,  who  betrayed  his  coun 
try  for  mere  gain — seems  to  have  met  a  similar  and  equally  de 
served  punishment. 

In  pursuance  of  the  act  of  13th  of  July,  1861,  the  President 
issued  a  proclamation,  in  which  the  inhabitants  of  the  States  of 
Georgia,  South  Carolina,  Yirginia,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee, 
Alabama,  Louisiana,  Texas,  Arkansas,  Mississippi,  and  Florida 
(with  certain  small  exceptions),  were  in  a  state  of  insurrection 
against  the  United  States,  and  that  all  commercial  intercourse 
between  those  States  and  their  inhabitants,  with  the  exceptions 
named,  and  the  citizens  of  other  States  and  other  parts  of  States, 
was  unlawful,  and  would  continue  unlawful  until  the  insurrec 
tion  should  cease  or  was  suppressed ;  and  that  all  goods  and 
chattels,  wares  and  merchandise,  coming  from  those  States  (with 
the  exceptions  named)  into  other  parts  of  the  United  States, 
without  the  special  license  and  permission  of  the  President, 
through  the  Secretary  of t  the  Treasury,  would  be  forfeited  to 
the  United  States. 

It  was  not,  however,  until  the  4th  of  March,  1862,  that  the 
Secretary  promulgated  general  regulations  on  the  subject  of 


TRADE  REGULATIONS.  325 

internal  commerce.  The  regulations  then  made  were  few  and 
brief,  but  were  believed  to  be  adequate  to  existing  exigencies. 
During  the  summer  of  1862,  however,  the  requirements  rapidly 
enlarged,  and  on  the  28th  of  August  of  that  year,  further  and 
more  definite  and  important  regulations  were  issued,  and  the 
number  of  officers  for  their  enforcement  was  considerably  in 
creased.  No  goods  or  merchandise,  whatever  inight  be  its  os 
tensible  destination,  was  to  be  transported  to  any  place  then 
under  insurgent  control,  nor  to  any  place  on  the  south  side  of 
the  Potomac  River ;  nor  to  any  place  on  the  north  side  of  the 
Potomac  and  south  of  the  Washington  and  Annapolis  Railroad  ; 
nor  to  any  place  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Chesapeake ;  nor  to 
any  place  on  the  south  side  of  the  Ohio  River,  below  Wheeling, 
except  Louisville ;  nor  to  any  place  on  the  west  side  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  River,  below  the  mouth  of  the  Des  Moines,  except  St. 
Louis,  without  the  permit  of  a  duly  authorized  officer  of  the 
Treasury  Department.  All  transportation  of  coin  or  bullion  to 
any  State  or  section  declared  to  be  in  insurrection  was  absolutely 
prohibited,  except  for  military  purposes  and  under  military  or 
ders,  or  under  the  special  license  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury.  And  no  payment  of  gold  or  silver  would  be  allowed  to  be 
made  for  cotton  or  merchandise  within  any  insurgent  State  or 
section.  And  all  cotton  or  merchandise  purchased  or  paid  for 
therein,  directly  or  indirectly,  in  gold  or  silver,  was  declared 
forfeited  to  the  United  States.  No  clearance  or  permit  whatso 
ever  was  to  be  granted  for  any  shipment  to  any  port,  place,  or 
section  affected  by  the  blockade,  except  for  military  purposes, 
and  upon  the  certificate  and  request  of  either  the  War  or  Navy 
Department.  All  applications  for  permits  to  transport  or  trade 
in  goods  were  to  be  in  writing,  stating  the  character  of  the  mer 
chandise,  with  the  name  of  the  consignee,  and  the  route  of 
transportation,  and  the  number  and  description  of  the  packages 
and  the  marks  upon  them.  The  applicant  was  to  make  oath  to 
his  statement,  and  also  that  it  should  not  by  any  authority,  or 
act  or  connivance  of  his,  be  so  transported  or  used  in  any  way  as 
to  give  aid,  comfort,  information,  or  encouragement  to  insur 
gents.  The  Secretary  of  War  and  ctf  the  Navy  issued  orders  in 
structing  military  and  naval  officers  to  render  all  necessary  as 
sistance  to  enforce  these  regulations. 


326  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Further  regulations  were  from  time  to  time  promulgated,  all 
having  in  view  the  same  general  object — that  of  regulating 
trade  in  districts  and  States  recovered  from  the  insurrectionists, 
and  of  preventing  intercourse  and  traffic  in  supplies,  with  them. 
The  most  important  and  comprehensive  of  these  were  issued  on 
the  llth  of  September,  1863.  They  were  the  result  of  long  and 
most  careful  consideration  and  consultations  between  the  Presi 
dent  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  and  the  Secretaries  of  the  "War  and  Navy  Depart 
ments,  and  also  between  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  the 
ablest  and  most  experienced  of  the  agents  long  before  appointed 
by  him  to  superintend  the  internal  commerce.  They  were  not 
adopted  without  many  misgivings:  but  the  appetite  for  trade 
was  eager  and  exacting,  and  the  impatience  of  all  restraint,  how 
ever  salutary  or  necessary,  was  very  great.  The  judgments  of 
the  best  informed,  including  the  President,  concurred  in  the 
conviction  that  it  was  necessary  to  grant  licenses,  under  restric 
tions  as  rigid,  however,  as  were  possible  to  be  imposed.  The 
policy  of  the  Treasury  Department  was  explained  in  a  letter 
of  Mr.  Chase  to  Kalph  S.  Hart,  January  5,  1864:  "I  keep 
steadily  in  view  these  general  principles  —  1.  Absolute  free 
dom  of  trade  where  there  is  no  danger  that  supplies  will  be  fur 
nished  to  the  rebels.  2.  Restricted  trade  where  there  is  such 
danger,  either  in  portions  of  the  loyal  States  bordering  upon 
rebel  States  or  in  rebel  States  occupied  by  our  military  forces. 
3.  ~No  intercourse  at  all  between  those  in  rebel  lines  and  those 
within  national  lines.  In  carrying  out  the  second  principle 
here  indicated,  my  intention  is  that  the  restrictions  shall  be 
stringent  enough  to  prevent  supplies  to  insurgents  beyond  our 
lines,  and  yet  not  so  stringent  as  to  prevent  supplies  to  the 
population  within  our  lines." 

Under  these  last  regulations  the  country  was  divided  into 
five  special  agencies,  and  a  supervising  special  agent  was  ap 
pointed  over  each,  and  under  these  were  appointed  "  assistant 
special  agents,"  "  local  special  agents,"  and  "  agency  aids."  The 
first  of  these  agencies  was  comprised  in  that  portion  of  the  Uni* 
ted  States  west  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains,  known  as  the  Yal- 
ley  of  the  Mississippi,  and  extending  southward  so  as  to  include 
£0  much  of  the  States  of  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Arkansas,  and 


TRADE  REGULATIONS.  327 

Louisiana,  as  might  be  occupied  by  the  national  forces  operat 
ing  from  the  north.  The  second  comprised  the  State  of  Vir 
ginia  and  so  much  of  the  State  of  West  Virginia  as  lay  east  of 
the  Alleghany  Mountains ;  and  alse  to  the  north  and  east  of  the 
boundaries  so  described,  from  which  trade  was  carried  on  with 
the  States  or  parts  of  States  declared  to  be  in  insurrection.  The 
third  agency  comprised  the  State  of  North  Carolina  ;  the  fourth 
the  States  of  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  and  Florida ;  and  the  fifth 
the  State  of  Texas,  and  so  much  of  the  States  of  Louisiana,  Ar 
kansas,  Alabama,  and  Mississippi,  as  there  was  or  might  be  with 
in  the  lines  of  the  national  forces  operating  from  the  south. 
The  regulations  laid  down  for  the  government  of  trade  under 
the  supervision  of  these  several  agencies  were  most  minute  and 
comprehensive,  and  were  thought  to  cover  all  the  contingencies 
likely  to  arise.  They  provided  also  for  the  collection,  custody 
and  sale  of  abandoned  and  captured  property,  which  was  thus 
described :  "  Abandoned  property  is  of  two  kinds :  first,  that 
which  has  been  or  may  be  deserted  by  the  owners  ;  and,  second, 
that  which  has  been  or  may  be  voluntarily  abandoned  by  the 
owners  to  the  civil  or  military  authorities  of  the  United  States. 
Captured  property  is  that  which  has  been  or  may  be  seized  or 
taken  from  hostile  possession  by  the  national,  military,  or  naval 
forces."  Provision  was  made,  as  well  by  the  law  as  by  the  reg 
ulations  of  the  Treasury,  for  the  recovery  by  the  owners  of 
abandoned  property,  under  certain  restrictions  touching  loyalty, 
of  the  proceeds  of  its  sale,  deducting  the  costs  and  charges ;  but 
the  authority  to  collect  extended  only  to  personal  property — al 
though,  by  an  order  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  the  care  of  aban 
doned  plantations  was  in  the  summer  of.  1863  devolved  upon 
the  supervising  agents  of  the  Treasury — and  included  furniture, 
family  pictures,  equipage,  clothing,  and  household  effects  and 
utensils^  and  articles  even  of  a  perishable  nature.  A  part  of  the 
"  property  "  which  came  under  the  supervision  of  the  Treasury 
agents  were  slaves  found  upon  abandoned  plantations  in  South 
Carolina.  Some  of  these  were  put  to  work  upon  lands  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Beaufort ;  a  school  was  established  for  their  in 
struction  ;  most  of  this  being  done  under  the  immediate  direction 
of  personal  friends  of  Mr.  Chase.  The  Secretary  took  a  warm 
personal  interest  in  this  little  colony  of  blacks  ;  and  it  was  this 


328  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

small  beginning  which  resulted  afterward  in  the  creation  of  the 
Freedmen's  Bureau  ;  an  establishment  which  grew  to  vast  pro 
portions — f  or  a  while  beneficent  in  its  operations,  but  at  last  de 
generating  into  an  abuse. 

To  these  various  regulations  others  were  added  from  time  to 
time,  until  the  whole  of  them  formed  a  code  of  laws  adapted  to 
the  inter-State  commerce  in  a  period  of  war.  With  the  sup 
pression  of  the  rebellion  and  the  seizure  of  large  quantities  of 
cotton  by  the  Federal  officers,  civil  and  military,  belonging  to 
private  persons  engaged  in  rebellion,  as  well  as  to  the  Confeder 
ate  Government,  modifications  of  the  old  regulations  and  some 
entirely  new  ones  were  made  to  meet  the  altered  circumstances 
of  the  country. 

This  brief  and  imperfect  sketch  of  the  internal  commercial 
intercourse  system  of  the  Treasury  Department  during  the  war 
will  give  to  many  readers  new  views  of  the  magnitude  of  the 
operations  conducted  under  the  administration  of  Mr.  Chase. 
The  number  of  officers  employed  in  the  supervision  of  the  in 
ternal  commerce  amounted  to  several  hundreds,  spread  all  over 
the  insurgent  States ;  and  the  "  revenue  marine,"  a  branch  of 
the  Treasury  service,  of  no  very  great  extent  before  the  war, 
was  considerably  enlarged  to  assist  in  enforcing  the  regulations. 
The  revenue-cutters,  old  and  new,  operated  with  especial  and 
admitted  efficiency  along  the  Potomac  River  and  upon  the  At 
lantic  coast.  The  income  of  the  Government  derived  from  fees 
collected  by  the  agents  in  the  transaction  of  the  business  of  their 
several  offices  sufficed,  according  to  a  statement  made  by  Secre 
tary  Fessenden  in  1864,  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  establish 
ment. 

Some  of  the  agents  became  corrupt,  despite  every  effort  to 
prevent  corruption,  No  sure  calculation  could  be  made  upon 
the  integrity  of  any  man.  Established  uprightness  of  character 
never  lost  its  value,  of  course,  but  it  was  no  certain  guarantee 
against  corrupt  practices  in  the  presence  of  powerful  tempta 
tions.  Some  men  went  into  the  service  of  the  Treasury,  in  this 
special  employment,  whose  past  lives  had  been  irreproachable ; 
but  they  fell.  Some,  of  not  so  good  fame  when  they  entered 
it,  came  out  untarnished,  having  borne  themselves  purely  in 
their  offices.  In  a  word,  the  times  were  out  of  joint. 


CORRUPTION  OF  AGENTS.  329 

Early  in  1864  Mr.  Chase  appointed  a  gentleman  whom  he 
had  long  personally  known  to  an  agency  on  the  Mississippi 
River.  This  gentleman  was  thoroughly  well  known  in  his 
community  as  a  lawyer  of  excellent  capacity,  of  strict  probity, 
who  had  served  in  a  judicial  office  of  high  grade  as  an  upright 
judge.  None  doubted  the  fitness  of  the  appointment,  and  none 
feared  for  his  future.  In  the  course  of  a  few  months  it  was 
found,  however,  that  he  had  been  honest  because  he  had  not 
been  tempted ;  he  was  discovered  to  be  a  bribe-taker,  who  had 
received  money  almost  immediately  upon  his  entrance  upon  the 
duties  of  his  place.  Within  the  short  period  of  but  sixty  or 
ninety  days  thereafter  he  had  corruptly  and  illegally  received 
pay  to  the  amount  of  about  seventeen  thousand  dollars.  "I 
learn,  with  great  pain  and  regret,"  says  Secretary  Chase,  in  a 
letter  written  on  the  24th  of  May,  1864,  suspending  this  officer 
while  the  charges  against  him  were  being  investigated,  "  from 
the  letters  of  Assistant  Special  Agent  Heaton,  who  was  directed 
by  me  to  inquire  into  the  truth  of  reports  relating  to  the  course 
of  yourself  and  other  agents  of  the  Department  on  the  Missis 
sippi  Hiver,  between  Memphis  and  Natchez,  and  including  those 
places,  that  you  have  been  wrongfully  connected  with  cotton 
transactions  in  your  district,  by  the  receipt  of  money  for  the 
performance  of  official  duties  and  otherwise.  You  were  selected 
for  your  position  because  of  my  personal  confidence  in  your 
integrity  and  ability,  and  were  made  fully  aware  that,  under  no 
circumstances,  would  any  officer  of  the  department  be  allowed 
to  derive  the  least  emolument  from  any  transaction  over  which 
he  had  any  official  control  or  influence.  The  pain  I  suffer  from 
the  delinquency  of  any  officer  appointed  by  me  is  augmented  in 
your  case  by  the  disappointment  of  my  personal  confidence.  I 
shall  be  glad,  indeed,  if  the  allegations  affecting  you,  which  now 
seem  sufficiently  sustained,  can  be  disproved.  In  the  mean  time, 
I  perform  a  simple  public  duty  in  suspending  you  from  office 
and  pay  until  further  notice."  I  have  been  informed  that  -  — , 
shocked  and  overwhelmed  by  his  disgraceful  dismissal,  died  of 
shame  and  grief  within  three  months  afterward. 


CHAPTEE    XXXIY. 

RECOMMENDATIONS    OF    ME.    CHASE    IN    RESPECT    OF     ECONOMY   AND 

TAXATION INCOME    FROM    TAXES     DURING    MR.     BUCHANAN'S 

ADMINISTRATION INTERNAL     REVENUE     AND    TARIFF    ACTS 

INCOME   FROM    THOSE    SOURCES EXTRACTS    FROM    LETTERS    OF 

MR.    CHASE   TO   MR.    FESSENDEN. 

IN  his  public  reports,  in  official  communications  to  the  Finance 
Committees  of  both  House  and  Senate,  in  private  letters, 
and  in  personal  intercourse  with  members,  Mr.  Chase  constantly 
and  earnestly  urged  upon  Congress  two  paramount  duties — 
economy  and  taxation.  But  the  immediate  imposition  of  enor 
mous  and  indiscriminate  burdens  upon  a  people  whose  internal 
trade  and  foreign  commerce  were  alike  paralyzed  by  the  pres 
ence  among  them  of  civil  war,  did  not  commend  itself  to  him  as 
a  wise  and  just  policy.  The  destruction  of  property  throughout 
the  free  States,  consequent  upon  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  the  breaking  out  of  hostilities,  had  been  immense.1  Thou- 

1  Many  persons  of  large  wealth,  in  apprehension  of  war,  had,  even  before  the 
breaking  out  of  hostilities,  transferred  their  property  to  foreign  countries.  The 
object  is  obvious  enough  :  it  was  to  escape  not  only  the  pressure  of  the  war  taxes, 
but  also  to  preserve  their  opulence,  should  the  result  of  the  war  prove  unfavorable 
to  the  national  cause.  The  taxable  property  transferred  to  Europe  aggregated  mill 
ions.  One  of  the  patriots  who  thus  moved  his  estate  out  of  harm's  way,  afterward 
addressed  Mr.  Chase  a  long  letter,  advising  him  to  a  terrific  scheme  of  taxation, 
and,  generally,  how  to  manage  the  finances  !  This  letter  was  lately  printed  in  a  New 
York  evening  newspaper,  by  way  of  criticism  upon  Mr.  Chase's  methods  of  adminis 
tration.  The  grim  loyalty  of  Artemus  Ward  vented  itself  in  a  proposition  to  send 
all  his  wife's  relations  \o  the  war  ;  and  there  were  plenty  of  people  whose  loyalty — 
of  a  like  kind — engaged  itself  in  schemes  for  taxing  the  property  of  their  neighbors. 
If  all  those  who  talked  and  wrote  about  taxation  had  been  as  prompt  and  honest  to 
pay,  the  revenues  of  the  Government  would  have  been  many  millions  larger  than 
they  were. 


PUBLIC  CREDIT  AND  TAXATION.  331 

sands  of  Northern  merchants,  prosperous  and  opulent  before, 
found  themselves  in  the  midst  of  ruined  commerce  and  for 
tunes.  Southern  journals  exultingly  proclaimed  that  grass 
would  grow  in  the  streets  of  Northern  cities ;  and  it  was 
indeed  certain  that  a  hundred  thousand  workmen  were  sud 
denly  thrown  out  of  productive  employments ;  prices  were  de 
pressed  ;  the  currency  of  the  country  was  so  disordered  and  un 
equal  as  to  have  no  uniform  value  or  credit.  The  coin  circula 
tion  was  limited ;  wholly  insufficient  for  the  public  wants. 
The  first  duty  of  a  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who  was  both 
a  statesman  and  a  financier,  was  therefore  to  reform  the  cur 
rency  and  give  to  the  country  a  sound  and  uniform  instrument 
of  exchange ;  and,  secondly,  to  give  time  and  all  practicable 
assistance  to  the  recovery  and  reinvigoration  of  prostrated  in 
dustries  and  commerce,  not  further  to  oppress  them  by  ill-timed 
assessments.  Mr.  Chase,  however,  never  lost  sight  of  the 
fundamental  truth  that  in  "  every  sound  system  of  finance  ade 
quate  provision  by  taxation  for  the  prompt  discharge  of  all 
ordinary  demands,  for  the  punctual  payment  of  the  interest  on 
loans,  and  for  the  creation  of  a  gradually-increasing  fund  for 
the  redemption  of  the  piincipal  of  the  public  debt,  is  indis 
pensable.  Public  credit  can  only  be  supported  by  public  faith, 
and  public  faith  can  only  be  maintained  by  an  economical, 
energetic,  and  prudent  administration  of  public  affairs,  and  by 
the  prompt  and  punctual  fulfillment  of  every  public  obligation." 
But  in  the  same  report  from  which  these  words  are  taken,  Mr. 
Chase  said  that  he  foresaw  the  difficulties  of  the  task  before 
him — difficulties  always  considerable,  even  in  time  of  peace, 
"  but  now  augmented  and  multiplied  beyond  measure,  by  an 
insurrection  which  deranged  commerce,  accumulated  expendi 
tures,  necessitated  taxes,  embarrassed  industry,  depreciated  prop 
erty,  crippled  enterprise,  and  frustrated  progress."  Nor  must 
it  be  forgotten  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  rebellion,  scarcely 
any  one  looked  forward  to  a  long  war ;  he  who,  believing  that 
it  would  be  either  protracted  or  desperate,  dared  to  express  his 
belief,  was  suspected  of  sympathy  with  treason  or  of  unsound- 
ness  of  mind !  Mr.  Chase,  like  most  of  the  public  men  of  the 
period,  had  no  approximate  conception  of  the  magnitude  or  du 
ration  of  the  conflict  upon  which  the  country  had  entered.  Pre- 


332  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

vious  to  the  meeting  of  Congress  in  July,  1861,  it  was  the  con 
fident  belief  of  the  Federal  authorities  that  300,000  men  would 
be  ample  to  destroy  any  force  the  Confederated  States  might  be 
able  to  bring  into,  the  field ;  but  in  order  to  make  the  contest 
short  and  decisive  the  President  thought  it  expedient  to  ask  for 
400,000  men,  and  'Congress,  in  a  fit  of  fervor,  voted  500,000 ! 
"WTien  this  was  done,  and  in  addition  it  was  resolved  to  devote 
four  hundred  millions  of  money  to  military  and  naval  purposes, 
there  was  a  thrill  of  exultation  throughout  the  North,  and  the 
work  of  the  war  was  believed  to  be  already  half  accomplished. 
These  preparations  were  thought  to  be  not  only  ample,  but  ex 
cessive  ;  and  how  much  effect  they  had  in  stimulating  the  Con 
federate  authorities  to  larger  efforts  than  they  otherwise  would 
have  made,  is  now  beyond  mortal  ken.  Mr.  Chase  participated 
in  the  almost  universal  belief  that  they  were  at  least  sufficient, 
and  relied  upon  the  judgment  of  General  Scott  that  with  them 
the  war  might  be  ended  in  a  single  year.  Under  that  convic 
tion,  and  persuaded  at  the  same  time  that  it  would  be  impolitic 
immediately  to  impose  excessive  burdens,  he  proposed  to  raise 
in  the  first  year  eighty  millions  by  taxes.  If  the  extreme  pros 
tration  of  the  business  interests  of  the  country  be  borne  in  mind, 
and  the  important  fact  that  the  largest  sum — exclusive  of  loans 
—ever  collected  from  the  people  in  any  one  year,  and  that  a 
year  of  unusual  apparent  prosperity  (1856),  was  but  a  fraction 
over  seventy-four  millions  ($74,056,699.24:),  it  will  be  conceded 
that  Mr.  Chase  recommended  the  highest  safe  limit.  It  is  im 
portant  to  remember  also,  that  the  income  of  the  Government 
from  all  the  sources  of  permanent  revenue,  during  the  four 
fiscal  years  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  Administration,  was  but  a  frac 
tion  over  $225,000,000.  In  1857  it  had  been  $68,965,312 ;  in 
1858,  $46,655,365 ;  in  1859,  $53,486,465 ;  and  in  1860  it  was 
$56,054,599.  The  income  from  the  same  sources  during  the 
fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1861 — eight  months  of  which  were 
passed  under  the  Administration  of  Mr.  Buchanan  and  four 
under  that  of  Mr.  Lincoln — was  but  $41,476,299.  The  income 
from  loans  and  Treasury  notes  during  the  years  1858,  1859, 
1860,  and  1861,  was  $114,686,900,  of  which  $41,895,300  was 
derived  during  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1861.  The 
income  from  customs  during  the  last  quarter  of  1861  was  but 


TRADE   AND   PRODUCTION.  333 

$5,515,000 !  From  this  brief  statement,  it  is  apparent  that  if 
the  Government  had  been  dependent  for  support  upon  income 
from  taxes,  it  would  have"  been  in  imminent  danger  of  a  collapse 
even  in  a  period  of  unhealthy  peace. 

During  the  months  intervening  between  the  extra  session  of 
Congress  in  July  and  the  regular  session  beginning  in  Decem 
ber,  1861,  the  vision  of  the  Government  and  of  the  people  took 
in  a  wider  range ;  and  the  vast  field  of  the  war  began  measu 
rably  to  be  seen  and  understood.  Meantime  there  had  been 
some  improvement  in  trade  and  production,  although  the 
army  had  absorbed  into  its  ranks  three-quarters  of  a  million  of 
active  business  and  professional  men,  artisans  and  laborers ;  and 
already  there  was  extensive  waste,  and  improvidence  in  both 
the  military  and  civil  administration.  Mr.  Chase  earnestly 
urged  economy.  "  The  first  great  object  of  reflection  and  en 
deavor,"  he  said  in  his  report,  submitted  December  9th,  "  should 
be  the  reduction  of  expenditure  within  the  narrowest  possible 
limits.  Retrenchment  and  reform  are  among  the  indispensable 
duties  of  the  hour.  Contracts  for  supplies,  as  well  as  for  public 
work  of  all  descriptions,  should  be  subjected  to  strict  super 
vision  and  the  contractors  to  rigorous  responsibility.  All  un 
necessary  offices  should  be  abolished,  and  salaries  and  pay 
should  be  materially  reduced.  In  these  ways  the  burdens  of 
the  people,  imposed  by  the  war,  may  be  sensibly  lightened ; 
and  the  saving  thus  effected  will  be  worth  more  in  beneficial 
effect  and  influence  than  the  easiest  acquisition  of  equal  sums 
even  without  cost  or  liability  to  repayment."  But  whatever 
might  be  saved  by  retrenchment,  large  sums  must  still  be  pro 
vided  for  by  taxation  and  loans.  Mr.  Chase  said  that  in  a 
former  report  he  had  stated  the  principles  by  which,  as  he  con 
ceived,  the  proportion  of  taxation  and  loans  should  be  deter 
mined.  Reflection  had  confirmed  his  opinion  that  adequate 
provision  by  taxation  for  ordinary  expenditures,  for  prompt 
payment  of  interest  on  the  public  debt,  existing  and  authorized, 
and  for  the  gradual  extinction  of  the  principal,  is  indispensable 
to  any  sound  system  of  finance.  "  The  idea  of  perpetual  debt 
is  not  of  American  nativity,  and  should  not  be  naturalized.  If, 
at  any  time,  the  exacting  emergencies  of  war  constrain  to  tem 
porary  departure  from  the  principle  of  adequate  taxation,  the 


334  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

first  moments  of  returning  tranquillity  should  be  devoted  to  its 
reestablishment  in  full  supremacy  over  the  financial  administra 
tion  of  affairs."  Existing  circumstances  were  not  propitious, 
however,  to  a  wise  and  permanent  adjustment  of  imposts  to  the 
various  demands  of  revenue,  commerce,  and  home  industry. 
"  The  most  sacred  duty  of  the  American  people,  at  this  moment," 
he  said,  "  requires  the  consecration  of  all  their  energies  and  all 
their  resources  to  the  reestablishment  of  the  Union  on  the  per 
manent  foundations  of  justice  and  freedom ;  and  while  foreign 
nations  look  with  indifferent  or  unfriendly  eyes  upon  this  work, 
sound  policy  would  seem  to  suggest  not  the  extension  of  foreign 
trade,  but  a  more  absolute  reliance  upon  American  labor, 
American  skill,  and  American  soil.  Freedom  of  commerce  is, 
indeed,  a  noble  policy ;  but  to  be  wise  or  noble,  it  must  be  the 
policy  of  concordant  and  fraternal  nations." 

In  addition  to  some  modifications  of  the  duties  already  laid 
upon  teas,  coffees,  and  sugars — increasing  them  considerably — the 
Secretary  proposed  to  raise  twenty  millions  from  direct  taxes  to  be 
imposed  upon  the  loyal  States  alone ;  and  in  addition  to  the  tax 
of  three  per  centum  a  year  already  levied  upon  incomes  in  excess 
of  $800  a  year,  which  he  estimated  would  produce  ten  millions, 
he  proposed  to  lay  such  duties  on  stills  and  distilled  liquors,  on 
tobacco,  on  bank-notes,  on  carriages,  on  legacies,  on  paper  evi 
dences  of  debt  and  instruments  for  conveyance  of  property,  and 
other  like  subjects  of  taxation,  as  would  produce  twenty  mill 
ions.  The  aggregate  to  be  derived  from  these  several  sources 
of  internal  taxation  he  estimated  at  fifty  millions  of  dollars. 
He  did  not  feel  warranted  in  estimating  the  income  for  the  year 
from  customs  and  miscellaneous  sources  at  more  than  forty 
millions ;  the  total  to  be  raised  by  taxation,  direct  and  indirect, 
was  therefore  ninety  millions ;  a  large  sum  under  the  circum 
stances  of  the  country.  The  internal  revenue  act  of  Julyl5 
1862,  was  the  fruit  of  these  recommendations ;  and  by  it  the  tax 
on  incomes  was  increased  to  five  per  cent,  upon  all  in  excess  of 
$10,000  a  year,  and.  was  continued  at  three  per  cent,  upon  all  in 
comes  below  that  sum  and  more  than  $600  a  year.  His  estimate 
of  income  from  customs  was,  however,  incorrect.  There  hap 
pened  so  rapid  and  extraordinary  a  revival  in  commerce  that 
the  receipts  for  the  fiscal  year  1862  aggregated  $49,056,397.62. 


INCOME  FROM  TAXES.  335 

In  his  report  of  December  4,  1862,  the  Secretary  recom 
mended  no  further  modifications  in  the  tariff  or  internal  revenue 
duties,  and  estimated  the  income  to  be  derived  from  both  for  the 
fiscal  year  ending  June  30, 1863,  at  $220,000,000 ;  $70,000,000 
from  customs  and  $150,000,000  from  internal  revenues.  He 
thought  the  yearly  expenditures  for  the  peace  establishment, 
pensions,  and  interest  on  the  public  debt,  at  and  after  that  time 
would  be  $105,000,000,  if  the  public  debt  should  not  exceed  his 
estimate  of  $1,122,000,000. 

If  the  war  should  continue  through  to  the  midsummer  of 
1864,  the  annual  expenditures  for  the  same  objects  (estimating 
the  debt  at  $1,750,000,000)  would  thereafter  be  $165,000,000, 
leaving  a  surplus  of  $55,000,000  a  year,  or  more  than  three 
per  cent,  of  the  debt  (and  increasing  in  proportion  as  the 
principal  was  diminished)  applicable  to  the  purposes  of  a  sink 
ing  fund.  The  actual  income  from  internal  and  customs  du 
ties,  and  miscellaneous  sources,  for  the  year  ending  June  30, 
1863,  was,  however,  but  $111,396,766 ;  and  the  public  debt  at 
the  same  date  was  $1,119,772,138.63.  The  income  for  the 
fiscal  year  ending  June  -30,  1864,  was — from  internal  revenue, 
$109,741,134.10 ;  from  customs,  $102,316,152.99 ;  from  miscella 
neous  sources,  $30.291,701.86 ;  from  direct  taxes,  $475,648.96  ; 
from  public  lands,  $588,333.29  ;  making  a  total  from  all  sources, 
exclusive  of  loans  and  Treasury  notes,  of  $243,412,971.20.  The 
public  debt  on  the  1st  of  July,  1864,  was  $1,740,690,489.49. 
Of  course  no  part  of  the  income  from  any  source  could  be  ap 
plied  in  reduction  of  the  debt  in  the  presence  of  vast  demands 
for  the  continuance  of  the  war. 

It  was  supposed  that  the  joint  resolution  of  the  29th  of 
April,  1864,  which  added  to  the  duties  on  imports  fifty  per  cent., 
would  have  an  immediate  large  effect  in  increasing  the  receipts 
from  customs.  The  results  did  not  realize  expectations.  The 
income  from  revenue  for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1865,  was 
but  $84,928,260.  This  was  due  largely  to  the  extraordinary 
fluctuations  in  gold  between  the  1st  of  April,  1864,  and  the 
end  of  the  fiscal  year  1865 ;  the  price  ranging,  as  we  have  seen 
in  a  former  chapter,  between  288  and  130.  The  internal  re 
ceipts  for  the  fiscal  year  1865  were  $209,464,215.25.  There 
was  a  very  great  increase  in  succeeding  years,  alike  in  the  in- 


336 


LITE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 


come  from  customs  and  from  internal  revenue,  as  the  following 
table  will  show : l 


Tears. 

From  Customs. 

From  Internal  Eevenue. 

From  all  Sources. 

1866  

$179  046  651  58 

$309  °26  813  42 

$519  949  564  38 

1867  

176  417  810  88 

266  027  537.43 

462  846  679  92 

1868... 

164464  599  56 

191  087  58941 

376  434  453  82 

1869  

180  048  426  63 

158  356  460  86 

357  188  256  09 

1870  

194  538  374  44 

184  899  756  49 

395  959  833.87 

It  is  important  to  remember  that  the  acts  under  which  these 
great  yearly  sums  were  derived  to  the  Government,  were  passed 
during  the  administration  of  Mr.  Chase,  and  that  he  was  more 
or  less  constantly  in  consultation  with  the  congressional  com 
mittees  having  special  charge  of  the  tariff  and  internal  revenue 
bills  which  afterward  became  laws,  and  gave  them  a  cordial  and 
effective  support.  There  were  various  modifications  of  the  acts 
after  his  resignation,  but  they  did  not  materially  increase,  though 
at  a  later  date  they  did  materially  decrease,  the  sums  derived 
from  internal  revenue.  In  this,  as  in  all  other  of  his  public  acts, 
Mr.  Chase  shrank  from  no  duty.3  It  is  not  likely  that  severer 

1  The  totals  here  given  include  sums  derived  from  miscellaneous  sources,  sales 
of  public  lands,  and  the  like,  which  are  omitted  in  the  table. 

2  "  The  first  duty  of  the  republic  to  its  soldiers  and  sailors,"  said  Mr.  Chase  in 
a  letter  to  Mr.  Fessenden,  on  the  llth  of  January,  1864,  "  are  prompt  payments  and 
sure  supplies.      Payments  cannot  be  prompt  nor  supplies  sure  if  appropriations 
exceed  the  probability  of  certain  provision.     The  estimates  heretofore  submitted 
require  from  loans  for  the  last  seven  months  of  the  fiscal  year  1864,  $352,226,539, 
or  $50,818,079  a  month.     If  vigor,  and  decision,  and  earnestness  in  the  work  of 
suppressing  the  rebellion  shall  be  attended  with  marked  progress  toward  its  consum 
mation,  these  large  sums  and  the  additional  sums  required  for  bounties,  can  prob 
ably  be  obtained  at  reasonable  rates.    But  the  whole  of  these  sums,  as  well  as  every 
other  amount  added  to  expenditure  beyond  estimates,  should  be  raised  by  taxation. 
No  uncertainty  can  be  safely  allowed  to  attend  upon  the  question  of  prompt  pay 
ment.     Delay  of  payment  and  doubts  as  to  its  certainty  chill  the  ardor  of  the  best 
soldiers,  create  dissatisfaction  in  the  minds  of  dealers  with  the  Government,  enhance 
prices  of  supplies,  and  invite  deterioration  of  their  quality.     I  trust,  therefore,  that 
the  Committee  on  Finance  will  accompany  any  report  that  may  be  made  on  the  reso 
lutions  referred  to  it  with  some  resolutions  pledging  the  faith  of  Congress  to  raise 
by  taxation,  beyond  $161,586,500  heretofore  estimated  as  the  proportion  of  this 
year's  disbursements  to  be  provided  in  this  mode,  every  dollar  which  may  be  appro 
priated  beyond  the  estimates  submitted  at  the  commencement  of  this  session.     All 
considerations  of  economy  and  prudence  require  this  legislation.    It  will  be  impos- 


TAXATION.  337 

taxation  than  was  imposed  would  have  been  patiently  borne ; 
nor  that  any  judicious  statesman  would  have  imposed  heavier 
duties.  There  was  enough  suffering  among  the  laboring-classes 
as  it  was ;  for  it  may  be  laid  down  as  a  safe  rule,  that  he  who 
has  no  commodity  to  sell  except  his  labor,  will,  at  the  last,  bear 
far  the  greater  share  of  the  public  burdens. 

sible  much  longer  to  raise  large  sums  by  loans  unless  large  sums  are  also  raised 
by  taxation.  In  the  report  submitted  by  me  to  Congress  at  the  beginning  of  the 
session  I  ventured  to  say, '  It  is  hardly  too  much,  perhaps  hardly  enough,  to  say  that 
every  dollar  raised  for  extraordinary  expenditures  or  reduction  of  debt  is  worth  two 
in  the  increased  value  of  the  national  securities  and  increased  facilities  for  the  nego 
tiation  of  indispensable  loans.'  Reflection  and  observation  since  have  satisfied  me 
that  under  our  present  circumstances  the  remark  is  an  understatement  of  the  truth." 
A  few  weeks  later  he  again  addressed  Mr.  Fessenden :  "  I  have  already  frequently 
expressed  to  you  my  conviction  that  expenses  and  taxes  should  be  brought  into  such 
relations  that  at  least  one-half  the  former  may  be  defrayed  from  income  derived 
from  the  latter." 
22 


CHAPTEK   XXXY. 


THIRTY  NATIONAL  LOAN"  OF  1861 THE  "  FIVE-TWENTIES " 

PROBABLE   RESULTS   OF   OFFERING   THEM   TO   CAPITALISTS — 

NINETY-SEVEN  TO  NINETY-EIGHT  CENTS  FOR  THE  DOLLAR 

DECLINES  TO  SUBMIT  TO  SUCH  A  LOSS — APPOINTS  A  GENERAL 
SUBSCRDPTION  AGENT — BRILLIANT  SUCCESS  OF  THE  AGENCY — 
THE  "TEN-FORTIES"  FAIL — SOME  FACTS  ABOUT  THE  WAR — 

SUMMARY. 

r  I  ^TTE  whole  income  of  the  Treasury  from  taxes,  both  customs 
-L  and  internal,  during  the  administration  of  Mr.  Chase,  was 
but  $429,750,969.51 ;  a  small  sum  relatively  to  the  enormous  ex 
penditures  made  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war.  Its  main  support 
was  derived  from  loans ;  if  Congress  failed  to  tax,  it  was  prodi 
gal  in  the  powers  it  conferred  upon  the  Secretary  to  borrow 
money.  The  various  acts  by  which  authority  was  given  him  to 
negotiate  loans  may  be  thus  summarized : 

July  17,  1861.  This  act  authorized  the  Secretary  to  borrow 
§250,000,000,  and  to  issue  in  exchange  for  borrowed  money 
bonds  of  the  United  States  irredeemable  until  after  twenty  years 
at  a  rate  of  interest  not  exceeding  seven  per  cent.  Or  in  lieu  of 
such  bonds,  Treasury  notes  of  not  less  than  $50  each,  payable  in 
three  years  with  interest  at  7-30  per  cent. ;  or,  secondly,  Treas 
ury  notes  of  a  less  denomination  than  $50  but  not  less  than  $10, 
bearing  no  interest,  but  payable  on  demand  in  coin  by  the  As 
sistant  Treasurers  at  Philadelphia,  K~ew  York,  and  Boston ;  or, 
thirdly,  Treasury  notes  of  still  another  class,  to  bear  interest  at 
3-65  per  annum  payable  in  one  year  from  date,  and  exchangeable 


SUMMARY  OF  LOAN  ACTS.  339 

into  Treasury  notes  of  the  first  class  at  the  option  of  the  holder. 
The  notes  of  the  second  class — afterward  known  as  the  "de 
mand  notes  " — were  limited  in  amount  to  $50,000,000  and  were 
intended  to  circulate  as  money.  The  Secretary  was  required  to 
open  books  for  subscription  to  the  7-30  notes  in  the  principal 
cities  and  towns  of  the  country. 

August  5,  1861.  This  act  was  supplemental  to  that  of  July 
17th,  and  authorized  the  Secretary  to  issue  six  per  cent,  bonds 
in  sums  not  less  than  $500,  redeemable  after  twenty  years.  The 
aggregate  of  these  twenty  years'  bonds  was  not  to  exceed  the  ag 
gregate  of  the  7-30  three  years'  notes  issued  under  authority  of 
the  act  of  July ;  the  design  being  to  fund  the  7-30's  into  long 
bonds.  And  authority  was  at  the  same  time  conferred  upon  the 
Secretary  to  negotiate  any  portion  of  the  loans  authorized  by  the 
act  of  July  by  issuing  six  per  cent,  bonds  so  reduced  as  to  make 
them  equivalent  to  seven  per  cents. 

February  25,  1862.  The  Secretary  was  authorized  to  emit 
§150,000,000  of  United  States  legal-tender  notes,  in  denomina 
tions  of  $5  and  upward ;  which  notes  were  to  be  received  the 
same  as  coin,  at  par  value,  in  payment  of  loans  made  by  the 
Government;  and  for  the  purpose  of  funding  Treasury  notes 
and  the  floating  debt  of  the  United  States,  the  Secretary  was 
authorized  to  issue  $500,000,000  six  per  cent,  coin-interest-bear 
ing  bonds,  redeemable  after  five  years  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
Government  and  payable  in  twenty.  These  were  the  bonds 
afterward  familiarly  called  the  "five-twenties." 

March  1,  1862.  The  Secretary  was  authorized  to  issue  "  cer 
tificates  of  indebtedness "  in  satisfaction  of  audited  and  settled 
demands  against  the  Government.  No  limit  was  placed  upon  the 
aggregate  amount  of  these  certificates  ;  and  by  the  act  of  March 
17,  1862,  the  Secretary  was  authorized  to  issue  such  certificates 
in  satisfaction  of  checks  drawn  by  disbursing  officers  against 
sums  standing  to  their  credit  upon  the  books  of  the  Treasury. 

July  11,  1862.  Authorized  a  further  emission  of  United 
States  legal-tender  notes,  to  the  amount  of  $150,000,000. 

March  3,  1863.  This  act  was  commonly  called  the  "  Nine 
hundred  million  loan  act,"  and  according  to  Mr.  E.  G.  Spauld- 
ing  *  "  conferred  more  discretionary  powers  upon  the  Secretary  of 

1  "History  of  the  Legal  Tender  Paper  Money  of  the  Rebellion,"  p.  167. 


340  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

the  Treasury  than  were  ever  before  granted  by  law  to  a  finance 
minister."  It  authorized,  for  the  then  current  fiscal  year,  loans 
to  the  amount  of  three  hundred  millions  of  dollars  ;  and  for  the 
fiscal  year  beginning  July  1,  1863,  and  ending  June  30,  1864, 
loans  to  an  aggregate  of  six  hundred  millions — and  to  issue 
bonds  redeemable  after  ten  and  payable  forty  years  from  date, 
to  bear  interest  not  exceeding  six  per  cent. ;  both  principal 
and  interest  payable  in  coin.  But,  in  lieu  of  long  bonds,  he  was 
authorized  to  issue  not  more  than  $400,000,000  of  Treasury 
notes,  payable  not  later  than  three  years  from  date,  or  earlier, 
"  as  might  be  found  most  beneficial  to  the  public  interests,"  to 
bear  interest  not  exceeding  six  per  cent,  payable  in  lawful 
money.  These  notes  might  "  be  made  a  legal-tender  to  the  same 
extent  as  United  States  notes,  for  their  face  value,  excluding  in 
terest,"  if  the  Secretary  should  think  advisable ;  and  were  to  be 
exchangeable  also  for  United  States  notes,  in  equal  amounts, 
with  interest  added  up  to  the  date  at  which  the  last  preceding 
interest  payment  became  due.  By  the  third  section,  an  addi 
tional  emission  of  $150,000,000  United  States  legal-tender  notes 
was  authorized,  "  if  required  by  the  exigencies  of  the  public  ser 
vice,  for  the  payment  of  the  army  and  navy  and  other  creditors 
of  the  Government." 

March  3,  1864.  The  Secretary  was  authorized,  in  lieu  of  so 
much  of  the  loans  authorized  by  the  act  of  March  3, 1863,  to  make 
a  loan  of  $200,000,000  for  the  then  current  fiscal  year,  and  to 
issue  bonds  redeemable  after  five  and  within  forty  years  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  Government,  principal  and  interest  payable  in 
coin,  and  to  bear  interest  not  exceeding  six  per  cent,  per  annum ; 
to  be  free  from  taxation  by  or  under  State  authority. 

June  30,  1864.  Authorized  a  loan  of  $400,000,000,  and  the 
issue  of  bonds  redeemable  after  five  and  within  thirty  years,  or 
if  thought  more  expedient,  payable  at  any  period  not  farther 
distant  than  forty  years  from  date,  with  interest  at  a  rate  not  ex 
ceeding  six  per  cent,  payable  in  coin.  But  in  place  of  an  equal 
amount  of  these  bonds,  not  exceeding  $200,000,000,  the  Secre 
tary  was  authorized  to  issue  Treasury  notes  in  denominations  of 
not  less  than  $10,  redeemable  at  any  time  after  three  years  at  an 
interest  not  exceeding  seven  and  three-tenths  per  cent.,  payable 
in  lawful  money  at  maturity  or  semi-annually,  at  the  discretion  of 


FRACTIONAL   CURRENCY.  341 

the  Secretary.  Such,  of  these  notes  as  were  made  payable,  prin 
cipal  and  interest,  at  maturity,  were  at  the  same  time  made  a 
legal  tender  to  the  same  extent  as  United  States  notes  at  their  face 
value,  excluding  interest.  In  the  second  section  of  this  act  a 
pledge  was  made  that  the  total  amount  of  the  United  States 
notes  issued,  or  to  be  issued,  should  never  exceed  $400,000,000, 
and  such  additional  sum,  not  exceeding  $50,000,000,  as  might 
temporarily  be  required  for  the  redemption  of  temporary  loans ; 
but  no  Treasury  note  bearing  interest,  issued  under  the  author 
ity  of  this  act,  was  to  be  a  legal  tender  in  payment  or  redemp 
tion  of  any  notes  issued  by  any  bank,  banking  association,  or 
banker,  calculated  or  intended  to  circulate  as  money. 

The  foregoing  comprised  the  several  loan  acts  passed  up  to 
the  30th  of  June,  1864,  the  date  at  which  Mr.  Chase  resigned 
the  Treasury.  Besides  these,  however,  were  the  fractional  cur 
rency  acts.  An  immediate  consequence  of  the  suspension  of 
specie  payments  by  the  banks  and  Government  in  December, 

1861,  was  the  astonishingly  rapid  disappearance  of  the  coin  cir 
culation  both  large  and  small.     Great  inconvenience  followed, 
and  to  supply  the  universal  necessity  for  change,  small  notes  and 
tokens  were  issued  in  such  large  quantities  by  individuals  and 
corporations,  and  by  cities  and  towns,  as  seriously  to  involve  the 
credit  even  of  the  Government  issues.     Mr.  Chase  early  observed 
this  tendency,  and  urged  the  prompt  action  of  Congress  to  avert 
the  evil.     Accordingly,  by  an  act  approved  on  the  17th  of  July, 

1862,  he  was  authorized  to  issue  in  exchange  for  legal-tender 
notes,  "  postage  and  other  stamps  of  the  United  States,"  and 
after  the  1st  day  of  August  then  next  following,  such  stamps 
were  to  be  received  in  payment  of  all  dues  to  the  United  States 
less  than  five  dollars  ;  and  the  same  act  prohibited  the  issue  of 
any  notes  or  tokens,  or  other  obligations,  by  either  persons  or 
corporations,  intended  to  circulate  as  money,  under  severe  pen 
alties  of  both  fine  and  imprisonment.     Experience  showed,  how 
ever,  that  the  use  of  stamps  was  practically  inconvenient,  and 
Mr.  Chase  recommended  to  Congress  that  a  fractional  currency 
should  be  substituted.     This  was  done  accordingly  by  the  act  of 
March  3,  1863,  which  authorized  an  emission  of  fractional  cur 
rency — not  exceeding  a  total  of  $50,000,000 — exchangeable  for 
United  States  notes  in  sums  not  less  than  three  dollars,  and  re- 


342  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

ceivable  for  any  dues  to  the  Government  less  than  five  dollars, 
except  duties  on  imports.  Authority  was  at  the  same  time  given 
to  engrave  and  print  this  currency  in  the  Treasury  Department. 
Mr.  Chase  availed  himself  of  the  authority  thus  conferred  with 
very  little  delay,  and  to  great  public  advantage.  On  the  20th 
of  June,  1864— ten  days  before  his  resignation — the  outstand 
ing  fractional  currency  amounted  to  $21,817,158.10.  At  the  time 
this  volume  goes  to  press,  the  amount  in  circulation  is  about 
§45,000,000. 

How  far  Mr.  Chase  availed  himself  of  the  authorities  con 
ferred  by  the  several  loan-acts  cited  above,  appears  from  the 
public  debt  statement  made  by  him  on  the  30th  of  June,  1864, 
as  follows : 

There  were  outstanding  at  that  date  six  per  cent,  twenty 
years'  bonds  issued  under  the  acts  of  July  17th  and  August 
5th,  1861,  a  total  of  $80,643,600;  of  six  per  cent,  "five-twen 
ties"  authorized  February  25,  1862,  $510,780,500;  of  five  per 
cent,  "ten-forties"  authorized  March  3,  1863,  $73,337,750; 
of  "  seven-thirties  "  three  years'  Treasury  notes  authorized  July 
17,  1861,  $109,356,150.  The  interest  on  these  was  payable  in 
coin.  There  were  outstanding  at  the  same  date  currency  inter 
est-bearing  securities  as  follows :  Six  per  cent,  certificates  of 
indebtedness  authorized  March  3,  1862,  $160,729,000  ;  of  five 
per  cent,  one-year  notes  authorized  March  3,  1863,  $44,520,000  ; 
of  five  per  cent,  two  years'  notes  authorized  by  the  same  act, 
$108,951,450 ;  and  of  six  per  cent,  compound-interest-bearing 
Treasury  notes,  authorized  March  3,  1863,  $15,000,000. 

When  Mr.  Chase  negotiated  the  first  loan  with  the  associated 
banks  of  New  York,  Boston,  and  Philadelphia,  in  July,  1861,  of 
$50,000,000  for  three  years'  "  seven-thirty  "  Treasury  notes,  one 
of  his  stipulations  with  the  banks  was,  that  he  would  open  sub 
scriptions  throughout  the  country  for  the  sale  and  distribution 
of  the  notes  by  agents  acting  under  the  direct  supervision  of  the 
Treasury  Department.  It  was  intended,  of  course,  that  the 
proceeds  of  sales  should  be  paid  to  the  banks  in  reimbursement 
of  their  advances  to  the  Government,  in  order  to  secure  the 
prompt  taking  by  them  of  a  second  loan  of  $50,000,000.  In 
fulfillment  of  this  stipulation,  and  in  addition  to  the  Assistant 
Treasurers  and  other  regular  officers  of  the  department,  Mr. 


SEVEN-THIRTY  LOANS  OF  1861.  343 

Cliase  appointed  one  hundred  and  forty-eight  agents,  to  receive 
subscriptions  to  the  "  seven-thirty  "  national  loan,  as  it  was  called, 
and  supplied  them  with  the  necessary  printed  forms  and  blanks 
to  enable  them  promptly  to  transact  their  business  with  the 
Treasury.  In  addition  to  the  expenses  incurred  in  these  prepa 
rations,  and  of  the  necessarily  increased  force  of  clerks  employed 
in  his  own  office,  the  Secretary  paid  to  the  subscription  agents 
one-fifth  of  one  per  cent,  on  the  first  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
obtained  by  them  respectively,  and  one-eighth  of  one  per  cent, 
upon  all  sums  in  excess;  and  allowed  for  advertising  a  stipu 
lated  sum,  varying  according  to  locality,  but  in  no  case  exceeding 
one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  These  one  hundred  and  forty- 
eight  agents  returned  subscriptions  amounting  to  an  aggregate 
of  $24,678,866.  The  Assistant  Treasurers  and  designated  deposi 
taries  of  the  department  sold  a  portion  of  the  remainder  of  the 
loan,  but  a  deficiency  of  some  millions  was  made  up  by  deliver 
ing  seven-thirty  notes  directly  to  the  banks  for  their  own  distri 
bution.  The  practical  inconveniences  of  a  "  popular  loan  "  con 
ducted  under  the  supervision  of  the  Treasury  officers  were 
found  to  be  too  great  to  warrant  a  continuance  of  the  system ; 
the  accounts  of  the  subscription  agents  were  therefore  closed ;  and 
when  the  second  loan  of  $50,000,000  was  negotiated,  the  "  sev 
en-thirties  "  were  paid  to  the  banks,  and  the  banks  themselves 
supplied  them  to  the  people.  But  the  sales  were  unsatisfactory, 
and  when  Mr.  Chase  applied  to  the  associated  banks  for  a  third 
loan  of  $50,000,000,  they  declined  to  make  it  upon  the  "  seven- 
thirties."  The  acts  authorizing  a  "  national  loan  "  (July  17  and 
August  5,  1861)  had  empowered  the  Secretary  to  negotiate  six 
per  cent,  bonds  with  such  a  deduction  from  their  face  value  as 
would  make  them  the  equivalent  to  seven  per  cent,  bonds,  re 
deemable  after  twenty  years,  disposed  of  at  par.  Mr.  Chase 
was  extremely  reluctant  to  make  use  of  this  power;  but  the 
military  and  naval  exigencies  of  the  time  were  inexorable,  and 
he  submitted  to  what  he  could  not  avoid :  $50,000,000  in  six 
per  cent,  bonds  were  equal  to  $45,795,478.48  in  seven  per  cent, 
bonds  redeemable  after  twenty  years,  and  the  Secretary  delivered 
to  the  banks  fifty  millions  of  six  per  cent,  twenty  years'  bonds 
for  $45,795,478.48  in  money. 

These  three  loans,  with  the  "demand-notes"  issued  under 


344  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

authority  of  the  act  of  July  17, 1861,  and  some  means  derived 
from  temporary  loans,  carried  the  Government  through  to  the 
end  of  February,  1862.  The  legal-tender  Act  of  the  25th  of  that 
month,  and  of  the  llth  of  July  following,  supplied  the  Treasury 
with  $300,000,000  immediately  available ;  the  temporary  loans 
were  large ;  certificates  of  indebtedness  were  paid  to  such  public 
creditors  as  were  willing  to  receive  them  ;  and  there  were  more 
or  less  steady  conversions  into  seven-thirties.  Some  small  sales 
had  been  made  of  the  bonds  commonly  known  as  the  "five- 
twenties,"  authorized  by  the  act  of  the  25th  of  February,  1862  ; 
although  the  whole  sum  outstanding  on  the  30th  of  September, 
1862,  was  but  a  little  over  two  and  a  half  millions  of  dollars 
($2,539,000).  Indeed,  when  this  loan  was  authorized  by  Con 
gress,  many  able  and  experienced  financial  men  expressed  their 
belief  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  negotiate  bonds  redeemable 
after  so  short  a  period  as  five  years  and  bearing  an  interest  of 
only  six  per  cent.,  and  for  a  long  time  appearances  seemed  to 
verify  this  belief,  for  they  were  decidedly  against  the  success  of 
the  loan. 

Under  the  law  every  holder  of  United  States  notes  had  a 
right  to  convert  them  at  his  pleasure  into  the  five-twenty  bonds 
at  par.  "  A  privilege  which  can  be  used  at  any  time,"  said  Mr. 
Chase,  "  is  often  not  used  at  all,  and  it  soon  became  clear  that 
voluntary  conversions  would  supply  only  a  small  proportion  of 
the  large  sums  required  for  the  disbursements  of  the  war." 
The  military  disasters  before  Hichmond  and  less  important  ones 
elsewhere,  had  most  injuriously  affected  the  financial  condition. 
There  were  vast  expenditures  growing  out  of  a  large  increase  of 
the  army  authorized  by  Congress  and  directed  by  the  President, 
which  had  made  exhausting  demands  on  all  available  resources. 
The  actual  payments  from  the  Treasury,  other  than  for  principal 
of  the  public  debt,  during  the  fiscal  quarter  ending  September 
30,  1862,  amounted  to  $111,084,446;  during  the  month  of 
October  they  were  $49,243,846,  and  during  the  month  of  No 
vember  so  large  a  sum  as  $59,847,077 ;  while  the  accumulation  of 
requisitions  beyond  resources  amounted  to  $48,354,700.  Mr. 
Chase  had  sought  to  stimulate  conversions  of  United  States  notes 
into  five-twenties  by  authorizing  the  sub-treasurers,  designated 
depositaries,  and  special  agents  to  receive  deposits  of  notes  and 


THE  FIVE-TWENTY  LOAN.  345 

issue  certificates  entitling  the  depositors  to  bonds  bearing  interest 
from  the  date  of  deposit.  Still,  conversions  lagged,  and  were 
altogether  inadequte  to  the  immense  demands  upon  the  Treas 
ury.  But  the  necessity  remained  that  these  demands  should  be 
met  with  the  least  possible  delay,  and  the  Secretary,  with  a  view 
to  prompt  relief,  endeavored  to  ascertain  the  best  terms  on 
which  the  bonds  could  be  negotiated  by  sales.  He  caused  care 
ful  inquiry  to  be  made  through  Mr.  Cisco,  the  Assistant  Treas 
urer  at  New  York,  and  other  experienced  gentlemen,  and  it  was 
ascertained  that  negotiations  could  not  be  effected  at  higher 
rates  than  from  ninety-seven  to  ninety-eight  cents  for  a  dollar, 
which  would  involve  a  loss  on  each  hundred  millions  of  the  loan 
of  from  two  to  three  millions. 

The  Secretary  was  unwilling  to  submit  to  this  loss ;  and  ac 
cordingly,  in  October,  1862,  he  determined  to  appoint  a  general 
subscription  agent,  with  authority  to  appoint  sub-agents  through 
out  the  country,  for  whom  the  general  agent  would  be  personally 
responsible,  and  in  this  way  organize  a  direct  appeal  to  the 
whole  people.  For  this  important  and  responsible  post  he  select 
ed  Jay  Cooke,  of  Philadelphia,  and  committed  the  whole  work 
of  supervision  to  that  gentleman.  It  was  agreed  that  the  com 
missions  of  the  general  agent,  for  services  and  to  cover  disburse 
ments  in  promoting  the  loan,  should  be  one  half  of  one  per 
cent,  on  the  first  ten  millions  and  three-eighths  of  one  per  cent, 
on  subscriptions  beyond  that  amount.  Of  these  three-eighths  the 
general  agent  bound  himself  to  pay  one-eighth  to  sub-agents, 
another  eighth  to  traveling  agents,  and  for  advertising  and  the 
other  expenses  necessary  to  make  the  loan  as  widely  and  favor 
ably  known  as  possible.  One-eighth  was  to  be  retained  as  com 
pensation  for  his  own  labor  and  risk,  and  for  expenses  charge 
able  to  his  own  proportion  of  the  loan.  His  responsibility  cov 
ered  all  the  acts  of  his  sub-agents  until  payment  into  the 
Treasury  of  all  moneys  subscribed,  and  delivery  to  subscribers 
of  all  bonds  subscribed  for.  No  liability  and  no  duty,  except 
that  of  furnishing  the  bonds,  was  assumed  by  the  Government ; 
while  to  insure  the  faithful  performance  of  the  duty  of  the 
general  agent  and  the  full  satisfaction  of  all  demands  upon  him 
self  and  his  sub-agents,  bonds  were  required  and  given  in  an 
aggregate  sum  of  six  hundred  thousand  dollars.  But  notwith- 


346  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

standing  the  magnitude  of  the  task  imposed  upon  him,  the 
general  agent  had  no  monopoly  in  the  disposal  of  the  loan. 
The  Treasurer  of  the  United  States,  the  Assistant  Treasurers, 
and  the  several  designated  depositaries,  were  also  directed  by 
the  Secretary  to  use  their  best  endeavors  to  obtain  subscriptions, 
and  were  authorized  to  allow  one-eighth,  and  in  some  cases  one- 
fourth  of  one  per  cent,  to  purchasers  for  resale. 

The  general  agent  proceeded  at  once  to  organize  a  general 
system  of  agencies.  But  for  a  time  the  result  was  not  encourag 
ing.  "WTien,  however,  by  the  act  of  Congress  of  March  3,  1863, 
the  absolute  right  to  convert  legal  tenders  was  limited  1  to  the 
1st  of  July,  1863,  and  the  system  of  sub-agencies  had  been 
thoroughly  organized  and  extended  throughout  the  country, 
subscriptions  gradually  increased,  until  at  length,  within  a  pe 
riod  of  less  than  eighteen  months,  the  whole  loan  was  absorbed 
by  the  people,  without  disturbance  to  either  commercial  or  in 
dustrial  interests.  Not  only  was  the  whole  loan  taken,  but  sub 
scriptions  were  made  on  the  day  it  was  finally  closed,  for  nearly 
eleven  millions  of  dollars  in  excess  of  the  amount  authorized ; 
which  excess  was  afterward  legalized  by  Congress,  but  for  the 
procuring  of  which  the  general  agent  was  allowed  no  compen 
sation. 

It  is  impossible,  of  course,  here  to  exhibit  in  detail  the  whole 
circumstances  of  this  loan.  The  number  of  sub-agents  em 
ployed  was  about  2,500  :  the  work  of  the  agency  extended  into 
almost  every  county  and  town  of  the  loyal  States  and  among 
all  classes  of  the  population ;  its  fruits  were  subscriptions  for 
five-twenty  bonds  amounting  in  the  aggregate  to  the  sum  of 
$361,952,950,  and  with  these  subscriptions  the  Treasury  was  en 
abled  to  pay  the  army  and  navy,  and  the  general  creditors  of  the 
Government,  with  a  degree  of  promptness  which  at  least  pre 
served  its  credit.  But  the  benefit  of  the  work  was  not  limited 
by  its  direct  results ;  for  the  interest  in  the  loan,  excited  by  the 
efforts  of  the  general  agent  and  his  sub-agents,  operated  very 
powerfully  upon  subscriptions  made  with  Assistant  Treasurers 
and  the  designated  depositaries.  These  subscriptions  amounted 

1  That  is,  it  was  left  by  law  in  the  discretion  of  the  Secretary  to  limit  the  period 
of  absolute  right  to  convert  to  July  1,  1863,  but  Mr.  Chase  never  made  use  of  the 
power  conferred  upon  him. 


THE  FIVE-TWEXTY  LOAN.  347 

to  an  aggregate  of  §148,823,500,  of  which  $92,178,300  were 
subscribed  by  purchasers  for  resale,  and  $56,645,200  for  direct 
investment.  The  whole  compensation  to  the  general  agent  and 
the  sub-agents  for  services  and  expenses,  was  $1,350,013.15,  of 
which  sum  $435,700.31  was  paid  to  the  general  agent  as  compen 
sation  for  responsibility,  for  services,  and  for  expenses  charge 
able  upon  the  one-eighth  allowed  to  him.  To  the  cost  of  the 
agencies,  in  order  to  ascertain  the  total  expenses  of  the  loan,  must 
be  added  the  commissions  allowed  to  purchasers  for  resale  by 
the  Assistant  Treasurers  and  other  officers  of  the  Government : 
these  commissions  amounted  to  $122,190.39  ;  making  the  entire 
cost  of  the  whole  loan  $1,472,203.54.  This  cost  is  a  little  less 
than  three-tenths  of  one  per  cent.,  or  eighteen  days'  interest,  on 
the  whole  amount ;  which,  it  is  believed,  is  less  than  the  cost  of 
any  other  great  loan,  American  or  English,  ever  negotiated  either 
before  or  since.  It  was  believed  by  Mr.  Chase — upon  the  most 
trustworthy  information  at  his  command — that  the  best  terms 
he  could  hope  for,  in  the  case  of  negotiating  $50,000,000  of  the 
five-twenty  loan  with  capitalists  in  the  ordinary  way,  would  be 
97  to  98  cents  for  a  dollar ;  and  there  was  every  reason  to  be 
lieve  that  upon  the  additional  sums  required  to  complete  the 
loan,  he  would  have  been  compelled  to  submit  to  much  more 
disadvantageous  rates.  Had  he  negotiated  $50,000,000  at  97-J- 
per  cent.,  the  cost  of  one-tenth  of  the  loan  would  have  been 
$1,250,000,  a  sum  nearly  equal  to  the  whole  actual  cost  of  the 
entire  loan  of  $510,776,450  upon  the  plan  adopted  by  the  Secre 
tary.  Had  he  attempted  and  succeeded  in  negotiating  the  whole 
of  the  loan  with  capitalists  at  an  average  discount  of  2J-  per 
cent.,  the  whole  cost  would  have  been  of  course  $12,500,000.1 

Up  to  the  first  day  of  May,  1863,  but  sixty-four  millions  of 
the  five-twenty  loan  had  been  sold ;  during  the  last  nine  months 
succeeding  it  was  sold  at  an  average  rate  of  forty-eight  and 
four-ninths  millions  per  month ;  in  the  last  month  rising  to  fifty- 
three  and  seven-tenths  millions.8  Add  to  this  aggregate  other 
loans  made  by  the  Treasury  in  various  forms  during  the  same 

1  See  letter  of  Mr.  Chase  to  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  April  6, 1864. 

*  The  day  before  the  loan  closed  the  subscriptions  were  about  four  millions ;  on 
the  last  day,  January  21,  1864,  they  were  over  sixteen  millions !  The  number  of 
subscribers,  from  beginning  to  end,  was  over  700,000. 


348  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

period — amounting  to  about  sixty-five  millions — and  the  re 
sources  of  the  people  diverted  from  the  ordinary  channels  of 
business  into  the  custody  of  the  Government  for  about  nine 
months  averaged  fifty-five  and  a  half  millions  monthly. 

But  economy  merely  in  the  cost  of  placing  the  loan  was  not 
the  only  advantage  attending  upon  the  general  agency  system. 
Other  and  incidental  benefits  of  an  important  kind  grew  out  of 
it.  The  sub-agents  were  mostly  responsible  heads  of  banking 
firms  or  of  chartered  banking  institutions,  located  in  nearly 
all  the  populous  towns  in  the  Federal  States,  who  practically 
loaned  the  use  of  all  their  banking  facilities  to  the  Government 
and  to  purchasers  of  the  loan.  If  the  Department  had  under 
taken  to  distribute  the  bonds  to  subscribers,  even  after  the  sub 
scriptions  were  obtained,  a  large  and  costly  increase  in  clerical 
force  would  have  been  necessary ;  and  even  then  official  formali 
ties  and  legal  limitations  of  action  would  have  presented  insur 
mountable  obstacles  in  the  way  of  prompt  and  satisfactory  dis 
tribution.  A  distant  officer  could  only  have  sold  bonds  for 
legal-tender  notes  actually  paid,  and  an  adequate  supply  of  legal 
tenders  was  not  always  to  be  obtained  at  the  place  of  purchase. 
The  general  agent  had  that  freedom  from  severe  official  restric 
tions  which  enabled  him  to  accept  bills  of  exchange  and  checks 
from  sub-agents,  and  to  place  their  proceeds  in  legal-tender  notes 
with  very  little  delay,  at  such  points  as  were  most  convenient 
to  the  Government.  The  single  control  of  the  loan  operations 
gave  Mr.  Cooke  power  freely  to  command  the  resources  of  all 
parts  of  the  country,  without  -the  conflict  and  confusion  likely 
to  arise  from  want  of  unity  and  cooperation  between  officers 
located  in  different  sections.  A  multitude  of  widely-separated 
and  independent  agencies  might,  and  most  probably  would, 
have  engendered  antagonisms  injurious  if  not  fatal  to  the 
negotiation ;  and  divided  responsibility  would  certainly  have 
increased  the  chances  of  laxity  and  irregularity,  and  of  possible 
loss  to  the  Government.  As  it  was,  no  loss  resulted,  while 
the  loan  was  placed  with  extraordinary  celerity  and  economy. 
Summed  up  in  a  single  sentence,  the  plan  was  a  great  and 
/^splendid  success. 

But  of  course  there  were  sharp  criticism  and  censure,  and 
allegations  of  favoritism  and  even  of  corruption,  by  the  partisan 


TEN-FORTY  LOAN:   ITS  FAILURE.  349 

journals,  by  many  bankers,  and  by  some  of  those  "  statesmen  " 
who,  in  the  terrible  providences  of  God,  are  but  too  often  per 
mitted  to  get  into  the  national  councils.  Influenced  principally 
by  the  clamor  of  the  time,  but  much  also  by  considerations  of 
economy,  Mr.  Chase  now  made  an  important  change  in  the  policy 
of  his  loan  operations.  By  the  act  of  March  3,  1863,  he  had 
been  authorized  to  negotiate  bonds  "  payable  at  the  pleasure  of 
the  Government  after  such  periods  as  should  be  fixed  by  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  not  less  than  ten  nor  more  than  forty 
years  from  date,"  at  a  rate  of  interest  not  exceeding  six  per  cent. 
Mr.  Chase  resolved  to  offer  for  popular  investment  bonds  of  the 
description  authorized  by  this  act,  commonly  called  the  "  ten- 
forties  ; "  but  he  made  two  important  departures  from  the 
policy  he  had  pursued  in  respect  of  the  five-twenties ;  he  re 
duced  the  rate  of  interest  to  five  per  cent.,  and  trusted  to  the 
inadequate  and  cumbrous  machinery  of  the  department  to  dis 
tribute  the  loan  to  the  people.  He  was  not  successful ;  be 
tween  the  close  of  the  five-twenty  negotiation,  January  21, 
1864,  and  the  date  of  his  resignation,  June  30th  following — a 
period  of  five  months — the  whole  sum  of  ten-forties  subscribed 
for  was  but  $73,337, T50.1  Naturally,  most  persons  attributed 
the  failure  to  the  reduction  in  the  rate  of  interest,  and  unques 
tionably  it  had  a  large  effect  in  preventing  subscriptions ;  but 
there  were  not  wanting,  in  all  the  great  cities  and  elsewhere, 
many  experienced  bankers  and  others  who  believed  that  if  the 
Secretary  had  elected  to  use  the  same  energetic  agency  which 
had  been  so  efficient  in  placing  the  five-twenties,  the  negotiation 
of  the  ten-forties,  even  at  the  lesser  rate  of  interest,  might  have 
been  made  a  success  equally  rapid  and  brilliant. 

But  the  failure  of  the  "  ten-forty  "  loan  was  only  in  part  due 
to  reduction  in  the  rate  of  interest  and  the  use  of  inadequate 
agencies  for  promoting  its  success.  The  popular  depression 
touching  military  affairs,  at  the  time  that  loan  was  offered,  was 
wide-spread  and  profound;  the  political  situation  was  critical 
and  uncertain ;  industrial  activity  was  checked ;  speculation  was 
rife  ;  prices  were  high  and  fluctuating,  which  was  largely  due  to 

1  According  to  Mr.  E.  G.  Spaulding  ("  History  of  the  Legal  Tender  Paper  Money 
of  the  Rebellion,"  p.  190),  these  bonds  were  taken  chiefly  by  bankers,  because  they 
could  be  used  hi  the  organization  of  national  banks. 


350  WFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

the  unrestrained  and  excessive  issues  of  the  State  banks  (in  May, 
1864,  those  issues  were,  as  nearly  as  the  Secretary  was  able  to 
estimate,  about  $180,000,000) ;  the  premium  on  gold  was  steadily 
advancing ;  and  the  people  were  restless  and  discontented.  But 
the  principal  source  of  financial  disorder  and  of  public  discon 
tent  was,  however,  in  the  military  administration.  It  required  no 
prophetic  eye  clearly  to  perceive  this.  "What  had  been  wrought 
in  the  way  of  military  success  was  far  from  commensurate  with 
the  means  employed,  and  after  three  years  of  prodigious  effort 
the  pressure  upon  the  resources  of  the  country  was  severer  than 
at  any  former  time.  More  than  a  million  of  men — probably 
1,100,000 — were  then  under  pay,  and  not  half  of  them  were 
within  striking  distance  of  the  enemy.  "Where  was  the  other  half  ? 
A  large  portion  could  be  accounted  for,  of  course,  but  of  the 
whereabouts  of  another  large  portion,  nobody  knew.  Instead  of 
resolutely  mustering  absentees  into  the  ranks,  the  war-office  was 
constantly  recruiting  new  troops.  This  led  to  a  costly  and  vicious 
system  of  bounties,  bounty-jumping,  perjury,  corruption,  and 
desertion.  The  general  lack  of  economy  and  discipline  was 
deplorable.  Even  at  the  close  of  the  war,  the  actual  fighting 
armies  of  the  republic  were  but  262,000  strong ! l  800,000  men 
were  in  the  rear !  200,000  of  these  were  sick,  wounded,  and 
prisoners ;  nearly  600,000  were  engaged  in  guarding  conquered 
territory,  keeping  open  lines  of  communication,  absent  upon 
fictitious  employments,  and  at  home !  In  December,  1864, 
Mr.  Cameron  stated  the  strength  of  the  army  at  700,000  men. 
Within  a  year — by  December,  1862 — the  number  had  been  in 
creased  to  an  aggregate  of  probably  not  less  than  1,200,000. 
In  this  estimate  are  included  all  the  men  under  pay  at  that  time, 
whether  enlisted  for  three  years  or  for  shorter  periods  of  service. 
From  the  last-named  date  to  the  taking  of  Richmond,  the  forces 
were  steadily  maintained  at  an  aggregate  of  nearly  1,100,000 
men.  Within  about  fifteen  months  after  that  event,  Secretary 
Stanton  mustered  out  1,034,000,  and  retained  60,000  in  the  ser- 

1  Thus :  Under  Grant  at  Richmond,  80,000 ;  Sherman  at  Raleigh,  65,000 ;  Scho- 
field  in  North  Carolina,  15,000;  Canby  at  Mobile  and  in  the  Southwest,  30,000; 
Wilson's  cavalry  in  Georgia,  12,000;  Stoneman  in  East  Tennessee,  5,000;  Thomaa 
in  Kentucky  and  East  Tennessee,  40,000 ;  west  of  the  Mississippi,  in  Missouri  and 
Arkansas,  15,000— total,  262,000.  (See  Draper's  "History  of  the  American  Civil 
War,"  vol.  ii.,  pp.  199,  200.) 


ACTUAL  FIGHTING  SERVICE.  351 

vice.  Making  all  just  deductions  for  the  inevitable  casualties  of 
war,  prisoners,  absent  from  sickness  and  upon  necessary  business 
of  the  armies,  and  for  guarding  conquered  territory  and  keep 
ing  open  lines  of  communication,  and  it  seems  a  reasonable  con 
clusion  that  out  of  1,100,000  troops,  at  least  600,000'  ought 
to  have  been  in  the  front,  ready  for  fighting  service.  But  there 
never  was  a  time  when,  with  even  thirty  days'  preparation, 
though  over  a  million  of  names  were  borne  upon  the  army-rolls, 
500,000  could  have  been  made  ready  for  battle.  The  army 
strength  was  of  course  exclusive  of  the  naval  arm,  and  this,  at 
the  end  of  the  war,  comprised  about  670  vessels,  carrying  4,600 
guns,  and  employing  over  50,000  men. 

That  these  enormous  forces  were  subsisted  with  as  little  em 
barrassment  and  disorder  to  the  finances  as  actually  happened, 
may  well  excite  our  special  wonder.  Much  less  might  have 
happened  but  for  that  defect  in  our  political  arrangements, 
which — without  one  single  compensating  advantage  in  the  way 
of  increased  energy,  efficiency,  or  economy  —  makes  the  war 
and  navy  administrations  independent  of  the  head  of  the  Treas 
ury. 

The  large  falling  off  in  the  receipts  from  the  sale  of  long 

1  It  is  worth  while  to  contrast  this  American  method  of  making  war  with  the 
German  method.  Within  fifty  days  after  the  beginning  of  hostilities  between  France 
and  Germany  in  July,  1870,  the  Government  of  the  latter  country  had  placed  850,000 
combatants  upon  French  soil ;  had  destroyed  the  French  army  and  the  French  Em 
pire,  and  lost  in  killed  and  wounded  200,000  men.  The  surrender  at  Sedan  took 
place  on  the  4th  of  September.  On  the  6th  of  September  this  was  the  disposition 
of  the  German  armies :  240,000  men  were  marching  upon  Paris,  and  the  cavalry  of 
their  advanced  guard  were  already  scouring  the  country  within  a  few  days'  march  of 
the  capital.  A  second  army  of  the  same  strength  was  on  the  Moselle,  and  kept  the 
strongest  fortress  of  France  and  her  largest  body  of  troops  closely  surrounded ; 
100,000  German  soldiers  held  the  captured  frontier  country,  and  were  gradually 
inclosing  all  the  fortified  places  between  the  Rhine  and  Paris;  160,000  men 
of  the  Landwehr  were  on  the  march  from  Germany  and  constantly  arriving  on  the 
theatre  of  war ;  and  lastly,  over  200,000  troops  stood  in  readiness  in  Germany  to 
replace  casualties.  On  the  19th  of  September,  the  German  armies  in  active  opera 
tion  were  again  800,000  strong,  and  Paris  was  encircled  by  one-third  of  them  I  All 
this  was  accomplished  by  organization  and  discipline  in  less  than  seventy  days ! 
But  few  soldiers,  of  any  rank,  were  absent ;  all  who  were,  were  absent  from  abso 
lute  necessity  upon  business  of  the  war,  or  by  reason  of  wounds  or  sickness,  and 
some  few  as  the  reward  of  superior  bravery.  But  none  were  granted  leave  as  mere 
matter  of  favor.  This,  however,  was  the  crying  evil  in  our  armies  during  the  re 
bellion. 


352  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

bonds,  and  the  continued  undiminished  demands  of  the  war, 
made  it  necessary  for  Mr.  Chase  to  resort  to  the  other  authori 
ties  conferred  upon  him  by  Congress.  He  somewhat  increased 
the  outstanding  aggregate  of  legal-tender  notes;  he  made  a 
large  use  of  one  and  two  years'  five  per  cent,  legal-tender  Treas 
ury  notes,  and  emitted  $17,250,000  three  years'  six  per  cent, 
compound-interest-bearing  legal-tender  Treasury  notes.  He  sold 
also,  under  the  loan  act  of  March  3,  1863,  $42,672,000  six  pei 
cent,  bonds  payable  after  June  30,  1881,  at  an  average  pre 
mium  of  4.13  per  cent.  Most  of  these  several  .descriptions  of 
securities  were  issued  between  the  1st  of  January  and  the  30th 
of  June,  1864.  They  carried  the  Government  successfully 
through  to  the  latter  date,  being  the  end  of  the  then  current  fis 
cal  year,  and  the  last  day  of  Mr.  Chase's  service  as  head  of  the 
Treasury.  The  use  of  the  five  and  six  per  cent.  Treasury  notes 
(of  which  he  had  issued  altogether  $211,000,000)  had  the  effect 
of  a  large  inflation,  but  the  demands  of  the  war  were  inexorable, 
and  the  failure  of  the  "  ten-forties  "  made  a  temporary  resort  to 
them  unavoidable.  He  had  begun  retiring  them,  however,  some 
time  before  his  resignation,  and  expected  to  continue  their  with 
drawal  at  the  rate  of  about  $10,000,000  a  month;  so  that,  with 
the  aid  of  such  legislation  as  he  expected  from  Congress,  and 
activity  and  energy  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war,  he  would 
speedily  have  restored  the  finances  to  order  and  soundness. 


NOTE  TO   CHAPTER  XXXV. 

The  following  tables  exhibit  a  summary  of  the  loan  operations  of  the 
Treasury  during  the  three  fiscal  years  of  Mr.  Chase's  service  as  its  head, 
together  with  a  statement  of  the  public  debt  on  the  30th  of  June,  1864 : 

Receipts  for  the  Fiscal  Tear  ending  July  30,  1862. 

[FROM  LOANS:] 

For  three  years'  seven-thirty  bonds  .        .  .        .  $122,037,585  34 

For  five-twenty  years'  six  per  cent,  bonds     .        .        .          13,990,600  00 

For  Oregon  War  bonds 1,000,700  00 

For    twenty   years'    bonds,   six    per    cent,   at    par    for 

$50,000,000  7  per  cents 46,303,129  17 

For  two  years'  Treasury  notes,  under  act  of  June  22,  1860, 

and  March  2,  1861 14,019,034  66 


LOAN  OPERATIONS,  1862  AND   1863.  353 

For  sixty  days'  Treasury  notes,  under  act  of  March  2, 1861  12,896,350  00 
For  Treasury  notes  under  acts  of  February  8  and  March 

2,  1861 3,500  00 

Under  loan  act  of  February  8,  1861 55,25750 

For  United  States  notes  under  the  acts  of  July  17  and 

August  5,  1861,  and  February  25,  1862  .         .        .  158,650,000  00 

From  temporary  loan  act  of  February  25,  1862.        .         .  66,479,32410 
From  certificates  of  indebtedness,  acts  of  March  1  and  17, 

1862        .                                  t  49,881,979  73 

From  temporary  loan,  in  anticipation  of  popular  subscrip 
tion     44,375,000  00 

Total $529,692,460  50 

But  from  this  total  should  be  deducted  repayments  on  ac 
count  of  matured  public  debt,1  .        .  96,096,92209 

Actual  receipts,  exclusive  of  repayments    .        .  $423,595,53841 


Receipts  for  the  Fiscal  Tear  ending  June  30,  1863. 

[FROM  LOANS  :]  • 

For  three  years'  seven-thirty  bonds   .        ...        .  $17,263,450  00 

For  five-twenty  years'  six  per  cent,  bonds     .         .        .  175,037,259  44 

For  two  years'  Treasury  notes  under  act  of  March  2, 1861,  1,622  00 

For  United  States  notes  under  act  of  February  25,  1862;  291,260,000  00 
For  United  States  stock,  Washington  and  Oregon  War 

debt 145,050  00 

From  temporary  loan,  under  act  of  February  25,  1862  .  115,226,762  21 
From  certificates  of  indebtedness,  under  acts  of  March  1 

and  17,  1862      ^ 157,479,261  92 

For  twenty  years'  six  per  cent,  bonds,  under  act  of  July 

17,  1861 76,500  00 

From  United  States  fractional  currency  ....  20,192,456  00 


Total $776,682,361  57 

But  from  this  total  sum  should  be  deducted  repayments 

on  account  of  public  debt3 181,086,63507 

Actual  receipts,  exclusive  of  repayments          .          $595,595,72650 

1  These-  repayments  were  on  account  of  the  following  items :  Old  funded  debt, 
$3.06  ;  redemption  of  purloined  Treasury  notes,  act  of  April  10,  1846,  $51.50 ;  re 
demption  of  Treasury  notes  under  acts  prior  to  July  22,  1846,  $50 ;  redemption  of 
Treasury  notes  under  acts  of  December,  1857,  December,  1860,  and  March  2,  1861, 
$43,110,000;  repayment  of  temporary  loan  from  banks  in  anticipation  of  popular 
subscription,  $44,375,000 ;  repayments  on  account  of  temporary  loans  under  the 
acts  of  February  25  and  March  17,  1862,  $8,553,207.53  ;  United  States  notes  retired 
by  substitution,  $58,610 — aggregate,  $96,096,922.09. 

s  The  repayments  for  the  fiscal  year  1863  are  thus  stated :  For  redemption  of 
Treasury  notes  under  act  prior  to  July  22,  1846,  $50 ;  for  redemption  of  Treasury 
notes  under  act  of  December  23,  1857,  December  16,  1860,  and  March  2,  1861, 
$2,211,650  ;  repayments  on  account  of  temporary  loan,  under  act  of  February  25, 

23 


354 


LIFE  OP  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 


Receipts  for  the  Fiscal  Year  ending  June  30,  1864. 

[FROM  LOANS  :] 

From  fractional  currency 

From  six  per  cent,  twenty  years'  bonds,  under  act  of  July 
17,  1861 

From  five-twenty  years'  six  per  cent,  bonds,  act  of  Feb 
ruary  25,  1862- 

From  United  States  notes,  act  of  February  25,  1862  . 

From  temporary  loans,  acts  of  February  25  and  March 
17,  1862 

From  certificates  of  indebtedness,  acts  of  March  1  and 
17,1862 

From  six  per  cent,  bonds  of  1881,  act  of  March  3,  1863 

From  ten-forty  years'  five  per  cent,  bonds  under  act  of 
March  3,  1863 

From  one  year  five  per  cent,  legal-tender  Treasury  notes, 
act  of  March  3,  1863 

From  two  years'  five  per  cent,  legal-tender  Treasury 
notes,  act  of  March  3,  1863 

From  three  years'  six  per  cent,  compound-interest  legal- 
tender  Treasury  notes,  act  of  March  3*  1863 


$8,169,721  25 
30,565,875  45 

321,551,283  81 
86,420,870  00 

169,218,044  81 

169,179,000  00 
42,141,771  05 

73,337,600  00 
44,520,000  00 
166,480,000  00 
17,250,000  00 


Total 

But  from  this  must  be  deducted  on  account  of  reimburse 
ments    

Actual  receipts,  exclusive  of  repayments  * 


.  $1,128,834,245  97 
432,822,014  03 
$696,012,231  94 


and  March  17,  1862,  $67,516,993.48  ;  redemption  of  United  States  stock,  loan  of 
1842,  $2,580,743.36 ;  redemption  of  7-30  coupon  bonds,  under  act  of  July  17,  1861, 
$71,500 ;  redemption  of  United  States  stock,  Washington  and  Oregon  "War  debt, 
$69,550  ;  redemption  of  United  States  (demand)  notes  under  act  of  July  17,  1861, 
$56,177,390;  redemption  of  United  States  notes  under  act  of  February  25,  1862, 
$2,099,000 ;  redemption  of  certificates  of  indebtedness  under  acts  of  March  1  and  17, 
1862,  $50,359,758.23— aggregate,  $181,086,635.07. 

1  The  repayments  for  the  fiscal  year  1864  are  thus  stated :  For  redemption  of  loan 
of  1842,  $105,812.30;  for  redemption  of  Washington  and  Oregon  War  debt,  $5,300 ; 
for  redemption  of  Texas  indemnity  stock,  $992,000;  for  redemption  of  Treasury 
notes  issued  under  acts  prior  to  December  23,  1857,  $50 ;  for  redemption  of  Treasury 
notes  issued  under  act  of  December  23,  1857,  $2,000 ;  for  payment  of  Treasury  notes 
issued  under  act  of  March  2,  1861,  $1,863,400;  for  redemption  of  postage  and  other 
stamps,  under  act  of  July  17,  1862,  $5,024,900;  for  redemption  of  United  States 
notes,  under  act  of  July  17,  1861,  $2,892,427.50;  for  redemption  of  seven-thirty 
coupon  bonds,  under  act  of  July  17,  1861,  $687,500 ;  for  redemption  of  United  States 
notes  under  act  of  February  25,  1862,  $42,561,048.54;  for  reimbursement  of  tem 
porary  loans,  $197,299,734.04 ;  for  redemption  of  certificates  of  indebtedness,  $165,- 
080,241.65 ;  for  redemption  of  fractional  currency,  $442,400 ;  for  redemption  of  two 
years'  five  per  cent.  Treasury  notes,  $13,615,200;  for  redemption  of  three  years'  six 
per  cent,  compound-interest-bearing  legal-tender  Treasury  notes,  $2,250,000 — aggre 
gate,  $432,822,014.03. 


PUBLIC   DEBT,  JUNE   30,  1864. 


355 


From  these  several  statements  it  will  be  seen  that,  in  the  fiscal  years 
1862,  1863,  and  1864,  the  receipts  from  loans  in  all  forms  were,  exclusive 
of  repayments,  $1,715,103,496.85.  The  outstanding  obligations  of  the 
Treasury  on  the  30th  of  June,  1864,  were  thus  officially  stated  by  Mr.  Sec 
retary  Fessenden  in  his  report  submitted  to  Congress  December  6,  1864 : 

Loan  of  1842 $196,80845 

Loan  of  1847 9,415,250  00 

Loan  of  1848 8,908,341  80 

Texas  indemnity 2,149,000  00 

Old  funded  debt 114,115  48 

Treasury  notes  (old)        ....  113,411  64 

Loan  of  1858 20,000,000  00 

Loan  of  1860 7,022,00000 

One  year  Treasury  notes  (old)     ...  600  00 

Loan  of  February  8,  1861        .         .        .  18,415,000  00 

Two  years'  and  sixty  days'  Treasury  notes  .  164,500  00 

Oregon  War  debt 1,016,000  00 

Twenty  years'  six  per  cents.         .        .        .  80,643,600  00 

Seven-thirty  Treasury  notes     .       '.        .  109,356,150  00 

Demand  notes .'  780,999  25 

"Five-twenties" 510,780,500  00 

United  States  legal-tender  notes          .        .  431,178,670  84 

Temporary  loan 72,330,191  44 

Loan  of  1863 42,672,273  34 

One  and  two  years'  Treasury  notes          .  153,471,450  00 

Three  years'  compound-interest  notes          .  15,000,000  00 

"Ten-forties" 73,337,750  00 

Certificates  of  indebtedness          .        .        .  160,729,00000 

Postal  currency 15,167,556  00 

Fractional  currency 7,727,321  25 


Total  public  debt 


$1,740,690,489  49 


The  whole  income  of  the  Treasury  during  Mr.  Chase's  administra 
tion  (including  the  last  quarter  of  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1861, 
which  from  loans  was  $17,585,534.39 ;  from  miscellaneous  sources,  $267,- 
212.67;  and  from  customs,  $5,515,552.16)  from  loans  and  taxes  of  all 
kinds  and  miscellaneous  sources,  exclusive  of  repayments,  was  $2,144,- 
854,466.36.  He  served  as  Secretary  1,210  days,  so  that  the  average  daily 
receipts,  from  March  7,  1861,  to  June  30,  1864,  were  $1,772,606.99|. 


CHAPTEE   XXXYI. 

ADVANCE  IN  THE   PREMIUM  ON  GOLD  DURING  1862 EXTRAORDI 
NARY  FLUCTUATIONS  IN  1863  AND  1864 — EFFORTS  TO  CONTROL 

THE  PREMIUMS  BY  TREASURY  SALES THEES  FAILURE THE 

"GOLD  BILL"  OF  JUNE  17,  1864 — ITS  DISASTROUS  EFFECTS — 

FEVER  IN  THE  GOLD  MARKET MR.  CHASE5 S  RESIGNATION 

THE  HIGHEST  FIGURE  OF  THE  WAR,  185  PER  CENT.,  JULY  11TH 
REPEAL  OF  THE  GOLD  BILL GOVERNMENT  SALES  OF  FOR 
EIGN  EXCHANGE  AND  GOLD  CERTIFICATES FAILURE  OF  ALL 

THESE    MEASURES TABLE     SHOWING    AVERAGE    PREMIUM    ON 

GOLD   FOR   FIVE   YEARS. 

MEANTIME,  immediately  after  the  suspension  of  specie 
payments,  December  30,  1861,  coin  began  to  command 
a  premium ;  on  Monday,  January  13,  1862,  it  was  already 
at  3  per  cent.  It  steadily  advanced,  with  some  comparatively 
slight  fluctuations,  until  on  the  last  day  of  the  year  it  stood  at 
34  per  cent.  The  fluctuations  during  1863  and  '64  were  extraor 
dinary.  On  the  1st  of  January,  1863,  the  premium  stood  at 
33f ;  at  50  on  the  24th ;  60  on  the  31st ;  on  the  12th  of  Febru 
ary,  54} ;  and  on  the  28th,  72J.  It  now  began  a  steady  decline, 
and  on  the  28th  of  March  its  highest  point  was  43|- ;  on  the  28th 
of  July  its  lowest  was  23J ;  and  on  the  28th  of  August  it  was 
22-J-,  the  lowest  figure  for  1863.  From  this  point  the  price  again 
advanced,  with  comparative  steadiness,  to  the  end  of  the  year. 
It  was  no  unfrequent  occurrence  for  the  price  to  vary  two  and 
even  five  per  cent,  on  the  same  day,  as,  for  example :  January 
13th  the  lowest  price  was  42  and  the  highest  44 ;  on  the  30th  it 
alternated  between  53  and  58J ;  on  March  24th  between  45£  and 
53  ;  and  on  the  next  day  between  39J  and  41f .  On  the  3d  of 


RISE  IN  THE  PRICE  OF  GOLD.  357 

March  the  highest  price  was  71f ;  on  the  4th,  68  ;  on  the  5th, 
58  ;  on  the  6th,  54 ;  and  on  the  same  day  the  lowest  point  was 
50  ;  on  the  7th  the  lowest  was  54£  and  the  highest  55£ ;  and  on 
the  10th  the  highest  price  was  63.  These  were  the  most  violent 
fluctuations  of  the  year.  On  the  31st  of  December  the  premium 
was  at  52  per  cent. 

During  January,  February,  and  March,  1864,  the  premium 
steadily  advanced  from  52  on  the  1st  of  the  former  month  to  69  J 
on  the  26th  of  the  latter.  April  12th  it  was  75  ;  and  between 
the  12th  and  the  26th  it  ran  up  to  84.  The  lowest  point  in 
May  was  68  on  the  10th,  and  86J  on  the  27th. 

These  remarkable  fluctuations,  coupled  with  the  steadily- 
advancing  premiums,  reacted  upon  the  prices  of  commodities 
generally,  and  so  seriously  embarrassed  the  course  of  business 
as  to  produce  a  general  alarm.  Manufacturers,  merchants, 
bankers,  artisans,  and  daily  laborers ;  in  a  word,  every  class  in 
the  community,  from  the  richest  to  the  poorest,  was  more  or 
less  affected  by  the  constant  advance  and  the  daily  fluctuations 
in  the  price  of  gold. 

To  prevent  these  two  most  serious  evils  became  an  object  ofj 
paramount  importance.  Three  plans  were  tried,  and  three  plans 
failed  of  any  thing  further  than  merely  temporary  effects  : 

1.  As  a  consequence  of  the  policy  which  required  duties  on 
imports  to  be  paid  in  coin,  there  was  a  large  accumulation  of 
coin  in  the  Treasury.  It  was  supposed  that,  if  the  Government 
were  to  enter  upon  the  market  as  a  "  bear,"  its  ability  to  de 
liver  "  cash "  gold  in  large  sums  would  operate  to  reduce  the 
premium.  Accordingly,  in  March,  1864,  the  Secretary  was  au 
thorized  to  sell  surplus  gold. 

On  the  12th  of  April  succeeding  the  passage  of  this  act, 
gold  was  at. 75  per  cent,  premium. 

When  the  announcement  was  made  that  the  premium  had  at 
last  reached  75  per  cent.,  and  was  likely  still  further  to  advance, 
the  effect  was  almost  like  the  loss  of  a  battle.  There  seemed  to 
have  been  a  sort  of  involuntary  concession  on  the  part  of  the 
public  mind  that  75  per  cent,  was  the  limit ;  that  under  that 
figure  the  danger  was  not  imminent,  but  that  beyond  it  financial 
disaster  and  destruction  were  to  be  apprehended.  There  was  a 
genuine  fear,  therefore,  when  that  figure  was  reached,  that  vast 


358  WFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

evils  were  impending.  The  flimsiest  of  the  Washington  politi 
cians,  and  the  solidest  of  the  business  men  of  ISTew  York  and 
other  commercial  cities,  participated  equally  in  this  apprehen 
sion.  As  the  strongest  men  instinctively  turn  to  the  Govern 
ment  for  relief  in  periods  of  mere  physical  danger  even,  with  an 
almost  common  impulse  an  appeal  was  now  made  to  the  Treas 
ury.  The  Secretary  was  earnestly  invoked  to  bring  the  power 
of  the  Department  to  bear  upon  what  was  called  "  the  gold  con 
spiracy."  It  was  believed  that  the  "  cash  gold  "  of  the  Govern 
ment  might  easily  destroy  the  power  of  what  a  notable  charac 
ter  afterward,  with  aptly-chosen  phrase,  described  as  "  phantom 
gold."  But  a  phantom  is  all  the  more  formidable  for  the  sim 
ple  reason  that  it  is  a  phantom ;  it  was  so  in  this  case ;  and  the 
gold-ghost  would  not  down  even  at  the  bidding  of  so  potent  an 
agency  as  the  Treasury. 

Telegrams  came  in  from  all  quarters,  urging  Mr.  Chase  to 
some  action  equal  to  the  exigency.     Robert  J.  "Walker,  an  ex- 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  distinguished  for  great  financial 
ability — said,  indeed,  to  be  a  master  of  the  science  of  political 
economy — urged  that  Mr.  Chase  avail  himself  of  the  authority 
to  sell  gold.     Mr.  Chase  said  he  did  not  doubt  that  temporary 
effects  might  be  produced  by  such  operations,  and  was  willing 
to  try  the  experiment,  but  added  that  permanent  effects  were 
not  to  be  expected  except  by  a  reduction  in  the  volume  of  the 
currency  and  by  military  successes.     He,  however,  went  to  I^ew 
York  on  the  night  of  the  13th,  and  arrived  in  that  city  on  the 
morning  of  the  14th.     Some  of  the  more  daring  of  the  gold 
operators,  being  informed  of  his  presence,  tried  the  experiment 
of  intimidation  ;  they  ran  the  price,  on  the  street,  to  88  or  89 ; 
this  was  but  a  flash  of  triumph,  however,  which  ended  in  disas 
ter.     In  the  course  of  five  days  the  Secretary  sold,  under  the 
general  direction  of  Assistant-Treasurer  Cisco,  about  eleven  mill 
ions  in  gold ;  and,  from  the  street  rate  of  89  on  the  14th,  re 
duced  the  premium  to  65J-  on  the  19th,  although  there  were 
constant  fluctuations  during  the  whole  period.     The  effect  of 
these  Government  "  bearing "  operations,  on  a  large  scale,  was 
sufficiently  convincing  that  even  the  great  power  of  the  Treas 
ury  was  unequal  to  the  task  of  controlling  the  market.1     "  The 

1  It  must  not  be  inferred  that  this  was  the  only  instance  in  which  Government 


"THE  GOLD  BILL."  359 

sales  which*  have  been  made  here  yesterday  and  to-day,"  said 
Mr.  Chase,  in  a  letter  written  to  President  Lincoln  on  the  15th 
of  April  (while  the  Secretary  was  still  in  'New  York),  "  seem  to 
have  reduced  the  price,  but  the  reduction  is  only  temporary, 
unless  most  decisive  measures  for  reducing  the  amount  of  circu 
lation  and  arresting  the  rapid  increase  of  debt,  be  adopted." 

!N"o  sooner  was  the  pressure  of  the  Treasury  removed  from 
the  market,  than  the  premium  again  advanced.  On  the  26th 
of  April,  its  highest  was  84 ;  on  the  15th  of  May,  a  month  later, 
it  was  85  ;  on  the  31st,  90 ;  and  on  the  10th  of  June,  99. 

2.  On  the  12th  of  April,  1864,  Mr.  Chase  sent  to  the  Finance 
Committee  of  the  Senate  a  bill,  the  purpose  of  which  was,  as 
stated  by  Senator  Sherman,  to  prevent  gambling  in  gold.  It 
prohibited  "  time-sales,"  as  they  were  technically  called ;  that  is, 
sales  of  coin  to  be  delivered  at  a  future  time ;  and  it  prohibited 
also  sales  of  gold  by  any  broker  or  banker,  at  any  other  than  his 
regular  place  of  business.  The  penalty  for  violation  of  this  act 
— which  was  declared  to  be  a  misdemeanor — was  fine  or  impris 
onment  ;  by  fine  not  less  than  $1,000  nor  more  than  $10jOOO ; 
and  imprisonment  not  less  than  three  months  nor  more  than  one 
year,  or  both,  at  the  discretion  of  the  court !  The  bill  was  the 
result  of  protracted  consultation  between  Mr.  Chase  and  expe 
rienced  financial  gentlemen,  and  members  of  Congress,  who 
agreed,  generally,  that  if  it  did  no  good,  it  was  not  likely  to  do 
much  harm ;  in  which  opinion  there  was,  however,  as  experience 
proved,  a  serious  mistake.  Mr.  Chase  emphatically  said  he 
was  no  admirer  of  this  sort  of  legislation,  and  was  by  no  means 
sanguine  of  its  good  results. 

There  was  a  good  deal  of  debate  in  the  Senate  upon  this  bill, 
but  not  much  in  the  House ;  in  the  course  of  which,  however, 
all  the  history  and  argument  bearing  upon  this  particular  phase 
of  the  financial  situation  were  exhausted.  It  seemed  to  be  pretty 
well  understood  that,  although  the  measure  was  to  be  adopted,  it 
was  with  no  sanguine  expectation  of  its  successful  operation, 
but  rather  with  a  good  deal  of  foreboding  and  apprehension'of 
evil.  It  passed  the  Senate  on  the  16th  of  April,  but  was  not 

coin  was  sold  by  the  Secretary's  order  with  a  view  to  affect  the  price  ;  it  was,  how 
ever,  by  far  the  largest  and  most  important  operation  of  its  kind  made  under  Mr. 
Chase's  administration,  and  for  this  reason  I  have  been  particular  in  describing  it. 


360  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

acted  upon  by  the  House  until  June,  and  was  passed  in  that 
body  on  the  14th  of  the  month.  It  was  approved  by  the  Presi 
dent  on  the  17th,  and  went  at  once  into  operation. 

Its  effects  were  immediate  and  disastrous.  Even  before  it 
was  enacted  into  a  law,  but  when  it  became  apparent  that  it 
would  pass  the  House  and  receive  the  sanction  of  the  Presi 
dent,  its  disturbing  effect  upon  the  price  of  gold  was  conspic 
uous.  It  was  not,  however,  until  the  21st  of  June,  when  the 
act  was  authoritatively  notified  to  the  Stock  Exchange  and  gold 
ceased  to  be  called,  that  fully  developed  its  evil  qualities. 

Gold  closed  on  the  afternoon  of  June  20th  at  98J.  On  the 
21st  it  opened  at  100,  and  sold  up  to  108  per  cent,  premium ;  on 
the  22d  it  went  to  130  ;  then  fell  to  120,  and  closed  .at  110  @ 
113.  On  the  24th  it  sold  at  about  the  same  figures ;  brokers  buy 
ing  at  110  and  selling  at  116.  On  the  25th  it  was  much  steadier, 
fluctuating  between  112  and  115.  On  the  27th,  there  was  fever 
ish  excitement ;  the  rate  was  118,  and  the  premium  fluctuated  at 
all  figures  between  that  and  138 ;  closing  at  133  @  135.  On 
the  28th  it  was  moderately  steady,  the  highest  price  being  138. 
On  the  29th  it  was  extremely  irregular,  selling  from  138  up  to  150, 
and  the  street  was  full  of  rumors  touching  military  and  Treas 
ury  operations,  and  closed  at  143.  On  the  30th  it  fluctuated  be 
tween  145  and  150.  On  the  1st  of  July,  announcement  was 
made  that  Mr.  Chase  had  resigned;  the  effect  was  immense. 
The  premium  advanced  to  180 ;  170  and  175  per  cent,  were 
paid  for  large  sums.  At  noon  it  waa  stated  that  Mr.  Fessenden 
had  been  appointed  Secretary,  and  the  premium  fell  to  155,  and 
at  3  P.  M.  to  125.  July  2d  it  varied  between  125  and  140, 
and  closed  at  137.  The  disastrous  operation  of  the  act  had  by 
this  time  impressed  Congress  with  the  necessity  of  its  prompt 
repeal ;  and  it  was  repealed  accordingly  on  the  6th — but  too 
late ;  its  substantial  effects  remained.  On  that  day  the  premium 
ruled  between  147  and  150 ;  and  on  the  7th  it  opened  at  154,  and 
closed  at  173  ;  on  the  8th  it  fluctuated  between  166  and  176J, 
closing  at  the  former  figures.  On  the  10th  it  varied  between 
160  and  170 ;  on  the  llth  it  opened  at  185  !  sold  down  to  180, 
then  up  again  to  185  ;  and  closed  at  180J-.  This  was  the  high 
est  figure  of  the  war.  On  the  12th  the  opening  rate  was  182, 
and  fell'  steadily,  closing  in  the  afternoon  at  172  @  173.  On 


EFFECTS  OF  THE  GOLD  BILL.  361 

the  13th  it  ranged  between  168  and  175  ;  on  the  14th  it  opened 
at  1G8  and  fell  to  157;  on  the  15th  it  fell  from  156  to  144,  clos 
ing  at  150 J ;  and  the  Tinbune  announced  that  the  back  of  the 
gold-conspiracy  was  broken.  Nevertheless,  there  was  an  ad 
vance  the  next  day,  when  the  premium  fluctuated  between  148|- 
and  16 1J.  It  was  not  till  near  the  close  of  September  that  it 
again  fell  to  100.  On  the  27th  of  that  month  its  lowest  point 
wras  92|-,  and  its  highest  95  ;  on  the  12th  of  October  it  advanced 
to  104£ ;  on  the  9th  of  November  to  160,  and  closed  on  the  31st 
of  December  at  127. 

Of  course,  the  whole  stock-market  was  strongly  affected,  and 
the  prices  of  securities  of  every  description,  including  govern 
ments,  were  more  or  less  seriously  and  permanently  disturbed. 
Indeed,  the  calamitous  effects  of  the  act  were  manifest  in  the 
prices  of  all  commodities,  and  were  felt  throughout  the  whole 
fabric  of  our  social,  commercial,  and  industrial  system.  Its 
failure  was  complete,  and  is  another  of  the  numerous  illustra 
tions  afforded  by  history  that  to  support  the  credit  of  paper- 
money  by  artificial  methods  is  a  vain  if  not  a  dangerous  policy. 

3.  The  Treasury  Department  sold  some  millions  of  exchange 
upon  London ;  for  a  time  privately  through  the  agency  of  the 
Bank  of  Commerce,  and  also  publicly  through  Mr.  Cisco.  On 
the  8th  of  July,  1864,  Mr.  Cisco  sold  exchange  at  198  per  cent, 
premium.  In  addition  to  sales  of  exchange,  the  Department,  in 
order  to  protect  importers  from  the  fluctuations  of  the  gold- 
market,  and  at  the  same  time  measurably  to  repress  the  advance 
in  price,  supplied  gold  certificates  upon  deposits  of  legal-tender 
notes,  in  the  sub-Treasury,  at  one-quarter  of  one  per  cent,  less 
than  the  current  rate  for  coin.  These  certificates  were  receiv 
able  in  payment  of  duties  upon  imports.  They  were  issued 
directly  to  the  importer  making  the  deposit,  and  were  unassign 
able.  But  even  this  plan  of  thwarting  the  gold  speculation 
(which  was  adopted  by  Mr.  Chase  upon  the  suggestion  and 
recommendation  of  the  New  York  Chamber  of  Commerce), 
simple  and  practicable  as  it  seemed,  and  for  which  a  great  tri 
umph  was  predicted,  was  soon  found  to  be  attended  with  prac 
tical  inconveniences  of  so  serious  a  kind,  that  after  a  few  weeks 
of  trial  it  was  abandoned.  Despite  every  precaution,  the  certifi 
cates  became  subjects  of  speculation. 


362 


LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 


....  The  following  table,  taken  from  the  Banker^  Maga 
zine  for  April,  1867  (cited  by  Amasa  Walker  at  page  476  of  his 
book  on  "  The  Science  of  Wealth  "),  is  valuable  as  showing  the 
monthly  range  of  the  premium  on  gold  from  January,  1862,  to 
December,  1865 : 


MONTHS. 


1862. 


1863. 


1864. 


1865. 


1866. 


January — 
February.. 

March 

April 

May 

June 

July 

August 

September. 
October. . . . 
November. 
December . 


Average. 


Par  @  5 

2i@  4f 

H@  2J- 

1*©  2* 

2fc@  4£ 

3J@  9* 


16*  ©24 
22    ©37 


34  ©60J 
53  ©72* 
89  @T1* 

46  ©59 
43*@55 
40*@4Si 
28*  ©45 
22*  ©  29* 
27    ©43* 
40f©56i 
43    ©54 

47  @52f 


111    ©144 


44*© 


46* 


108* 


41* 


Average  for  five  years,  52J  per  cent. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

LETTEES   AND   EXTKACTS  FROM  LETTEKS   OF  MR.   CHASE  WRITTEN 
DTJEING  THE  YEAK  1862. 

To  Peter  Zinn,  Esq.,  Columbus,  Ohio. 

"  WASHINGTON,  January  16, 1862. 

"  .  .  .  .  ~T~  AM  not  a  candidate  for  the  Senate,  in  the  place  of  Mr.  Wade. 
-L  I  took  the  post  I  now  hold  in  obedience  to  the  wishes  of  the 
President  and  the  judgment  of  respected  political  friends.  It  was  against 
my  own  inclinations,  but  having  yielded  these  then,  I  have  no  wish  now 
except  to  do  my  whole  duty  to  the  best  of  my  ability  in  the  position  as 
signed  me,  until  the  wishes  and  judgment  which  governed  me  in  taking  it, 
shall  indicate  to  me  another  sphere  of  duty  or  allow  me  to  retire  to  private 
life.  .  .  .  Accept  my  thanks  for  your  old  friendship  and  support,  and  for 
your  generous  appreciation  of  my  endeavors  to  serve  our  country  in  the 
place  I  now  occupy.  I  have  found  favor  beyond  my  hope  and  beyond  my 
desert.  My  chief,  if  not  my  single,  title  to  it  is  sincerity  and  zeal  in  the 
service 

'  "  You  know  already  that  Mr.  Stanton  is  to  be  Secretary  of  War  in  place 
of  Mr.  Cameron.  I  expect  much  from  his  ability,  energy,  and  indefatigable 
labor,  though  I  part  from  Cameron  with  regret. 

"  ....  I  see  much  I  wish  was  otherwise — much  that  I  think  could  be 
mended ;  but  I  try  to  make  the  best  of  things  and  not  the  worst.  Mc- 
Clellan  is  now  almost  well,  and  I  look  for  early  movements  and  great  suc 
cess.  ..." 

To  Elliott  C.  Cowdin,  Esq.,  Chairman,  etc.,  New  York. 

"  WASHINGTON,  February  20, 18C2. 

"  SIB  :  Most  gladly  would  I  unite  with  the  citizens  of  New  York  in 
celebrating  the  anniversary  of  the  birthday  of  Washington  could  I  leave, 
even  for  such  a  purpose,  my  post  of  duty  at  this  time ;  but  I  must  remain 
here. 

"  The  celebration  which  you  propose,  and  similar  celebrations  spontane 
ously  springing  from  the  same  impulse  all  over  the  country,  justify  the 


364  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

hope  that  the  memory  of  Washington,  ever  living  in  the  hearts  of  his  coun 
trymen,  will  lend  an  appropriate  inspiration  to  all  our  endeavors  to  restore 
the  Union  which  he  contributed  so  much  to  establish.  We  need  that  in 
spiration.  We  need,  for  the  trials  of  these  days,  his  firmness,  his  patience, 
his  disinterestedness,  his  true  courage,  his  lofty  sense  of  justice,  his  enlight 
ened  zeal  for  impartial  freedom.  These  are  the  virtues,  which  exercised  in 
such  degree  as  men  are  capable  of,  will  not  only  restore  the  Union,  but  will 
reestablish  it  in  more  than  its  pristine  vigor,  compactness,  and  beneficence." 

To  Henry  C.  Gary,  Esq.,  Philadelphia. 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  16, 1862. 

" .  .  .  .  Accept  my  thanks  for  the  opportunity  of  reading  Mr.  (John 
Stuart)  Mill's  article,  which  I  return. 

"He  does  not  exaggerate  the  great  evil  from  which  the  action  of  the 
American  Government  delivered  the  world  in  the  settlement  of  the  Trent 
affair.  But  it  is  hard  to  accept  his  view  that  the  English  Government 
could  have  done  no  otherwise  than  as  it  did.  I  am  quite  certain  that,  had 
positions  been  reversed,  our  Government  would  have  acted  very  differently. 
Doubtless  we  should  have  asked  explanations,  but  I  mistake  the  case  if  we 
would  have  made  any  threats. 

"  It  is  by  no  means  certain,  either,  that  had  a  war  taken  place  between 
ourselves  and  the  English,  the  issue  would  have  been  the  establishment  of 
the  Southern  Confederacy  as  a  great  slaveholding  and  slavery-extending 
power.  This  Government  always  had  a  talismanic  veto  on  that  result  in 
the  simple  word  *  Emancipation.'  The  crime  of  England's  aid  for  such 
an  establishment  would  indeed  have  been  flagrant,  but  it  would  have  had 
another  issue  and  a  fearful  recoil. 

"  But  these  deductions  from  the  general  merit  of  the  article  are  slight. 
As  a  whole  it  is  admirable.  Its  tone  is  noble ;  its  style  eloquent ;  its  rea 
soning  exact  and  forcible  ;  its  sentiments  elevated  and  manly.  Altogether 
it  is  the  best  appreciation  of  the  situation  I  have  seen,  if  I  except  De  Gas- 
parin's  book,  *  Un  Grand  Peuple,  que  se  releve,'  which  to  correct  insight 
joins  wonderful  foresight." 

To  William  P.  H'dlen,  Esq.,  Cincinnati. 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  26, 1802. 

".  .  .  .  I  am  not  fond  of  political  metaphysics.  Th  e  article  in  the  Even 
ing  Post,  which  you  send  me,  suits  me  well  enough.  While  I  think  that 
the  Government,  in  suppression  of  the  rebellion,  and  in  view  of  the  destruc 
tion  by  suicide  of  the  rebel  State  governments  with  the  actual  or  strongly- 
implied  consent  of  a  majority  of  their  citizens,  may  regard  those  States  as 
having  so  far  forfeited  their  rights  that  they  may  justly  be  treated  as 
Territories,  I  have  never  proposed  to  make  this  opinion  the  basis  of  politi 
cal  measures.  I  much  prefer  to  regard  each  State  as  still  existing  intact, 
and  to  be  subject  to  no  change  of  boundaries  except  such  as  may  be  freely 


MILITARY  APPOINTMENTS.  365 

consented  to  by  its  people.  I  want  to  keep  all  the  stars,  and  all  the 
stripes;  and  to  keep  all  the  States  with  their  old  names  and  ensigns. 
South  Carolina  should  be  South  Carolina  still ;  but  reformed,  I  hope.  I 
would  preserve,  not  destroy,  and  I  prefer  civil  provisional  government, 
authorized  by  Congress,  to  military  government  instituted  by  the  Presi 
dent." 

To  General  Irwin  McDowell. 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  28, 1862. 

".  .  .  .  Inclosed  you  will  find  an  article  from  the  Cincinnati  Commer 
cial,  which  I  hope  you  will  read  with  care. 

"  It  grieves  me  to  see  the  confidence  of  the  country,  which  was  revived 
by  the  late  movement  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  already  relapsing  into 
distrust.  Let  me  beg  you  to  do  all  that  is  possible  to  inspire  vigor  and 
energy.  Permit  me  also  to  suggest  the  expediency  of  having  no  more  re 
views.  The  country  is  in  no  mood  to  hear  of  any  thing,  however  useful  and 
desirable  in  itself,  which  savors  of  show  rather  than  action.  Think  how 
much  is  to  be  done,  and  how  near  the  midsummer  is  1 

"  If  you  cannot  inspire  activity,  and  even  dash,  into  the  army,  you 
ought  to  seek  some  other  command,  unless  certain  that  the  outcome  will 
prove  the  delay  to  be  Fabian,  and  only  a  means  to  surer  and  larger  suc 
cess.  .  .  ." 

To  Colonel . 

"  WASHINGTON,  April  1, 1862. 

" .  .  .  .  You  are  mistaken  about  the  potentiality  of  '  a  word  from  me ' 
in  the  matter  of  brigadier-making  with  the  President  and  Secretary  of 
War.  I  have,  however,  referred  your  letter  to  the  latter,  with  my  indorse 
ment. 

"I  cannot  approve  the  haste  and  inconsideration  with  which  briga 
diers  and  other  high  officers  are  made.  The  consequences  are  all  evil — 
evil  morally,  evil  financially,  and  evil  politically." 

To  Bradford  It.  Wood,  Esq.,  Copenhagen,  Denmark. 

"  WASHINGTON,  April  2, 1862. 

" ....  I  quite  agree  with  your  views  of  our  duties  both  in  the  prose 
cution  of  the  war,  and  in  relation  to  slavery.  It  was  my  opinion  from 
the  first  that  we  should  strike  the  insurgents  as  hard  and  as  fast  as  pos 
sible.  I  remember— how  well !— going  to  General  Scott  in  May,  nearly 
two  weeks  before  Virginia  voted  on  secession,  and  urging  him  to  seize 
upon  Manassas  and  Alexandria.  At  that  time  the  rebels  had  no  force  of 
any  strength  or  importance  at  either  point,  and  only  a  few  hundred  men 
at  Harper's  Ferry.  I  urged  that  Manassas,  commanding  the  two  rail 
roads,  was  of  great  strategic  importance ;  that  with  Manassas  in  our  pos 
session  the  rebels  would  be  obliged  to  fall  back  from  Harper's  Ferry 
and  Winchester,  which  would  leave  the  Valley  of  the  Shenandoah  and  a 


366  ^IFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

large  space  on  the  Potomac  clear  of  them,  and  give  us  the  command  of 
the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  to  Wheeling.  With  this  support,  I  fur 
ther  insisted  that  Virginia  might  be  carried  against  secession  by  the  pop 
ular  vote,  and  that  in  this  way  the  whole  State  might  be  saved.  General 
Scott  was  a  good  deal  impressed  by  these  views,  but  his  military  prudence 
decided  him  against  the  measures  I  proposed.  The  opportunity  passed 
by  ;  Manassas  was  occupied  by  the  rebels,  and  you  know  the  history. 

"  There  have  been  other  occasions  in  the  course  of  the  struggle  in 
which  it  seemed  to  me  that  a  different  course  from  that  actually  adopted 
would  have  been  better.  This  is  especially  true  in  relation  to  slavery. 
It  has  seemed  to  me  from  the  early  days  of  the  conflict  that  it  was  bad 
policy  as  well  as  bad  principle  to  give  any  support  to  the  institution.  I 
was  quite  willing  to  let  the  loyal  States  do  with  it  what  they  would,  just 
as  if  we  were  at  peace  ;  but  I  have  not  been  able  to  see  the  expediency  or 
propriety  of  upholding  the  institution,  directly  or  indirectly,  in  the  rebel 
States.  My  idea  was  —  not  to  declare  emancipation  —  but  simply  to  treat 
the  population  just  as  we  found  it,  loyal  or  disloyal  ;  and  the  black  loyal 
ist  better  than  a  white  rebel,  and  the  same  as  a  white  loyalist.  And  I 
could  see  no  valid  objection  to  enlisting  acclimated  blacks,  loyal  and  will 
ing  to  serve,  any  more  than  enlisting  white  ones.  But  I  have  not  been 
able  to  make  our  friends  in  the  administration  see  as  I  have  seen  ;  and  I 
certainly  do  not  claim  to  be  more  wise  than  they.  When,  therefore,  I  am 
overruled,  I  have  quietly  submitted,  doing  all  I  could  to  carry  forward  the 
cause  and  the  work,  if  not  in  my  preferred  way,  yet  in  the  best  way  pos 
sible  for  me.  .  .  .  Can  you  send  me  any  good  books  —  either  in  French  or 
English  —  showing  systems  of  revenue  and  taxation  in  Denmark  ?  " 

Early  in  May,  1862,  the  President,  Mr.  Chase,  and  Mr. 
Stanton,  the  Secretary  of  War,  went  together  to  fortress  Mon 
roe  on  the  revenue-steamer  Miami.  The  following  letters  to 
his  daughter  Janet  give  a  graphic  account  of  the  important 
events  which  happened  during  their  stay  : 


STEAMEB  MIAMI,  OFF  FOBTBESS  MONBOE,  May  7,  1862. 

"  ....  I  write  you  from  the  cabin  of  the  revenue  steamer  Miami, 
just  outside  two  steam-transports  loaded  with  troops,  embarked  for  a 
proposed  attack  on  Norfolk. 

"We  came  here  night  before  last,  having  left  Washington  on  Monday 
evening  just  before  dusk.  Our  party  consisted  of  the  President,  Mr.  Stan- 
ton,  General  Viele  —  who  had  just  returned  from  Port  Royal,  where  he  com 
manded  a  brigade  —  and  myself  of  course.  Our  staunch  little  Miami 
bore  us  rapidly  and  pleasantly  down  the  river,  till  we  were  some  ten  or 
fifteen  miles  below  Alexandria,  when  the  night,  which  had  come  on  with 
a  drizzling  rain,  became  so  thick  and  dark  that  the  pilot  found  himself 
unable  to  discern  the  right  course.  We  were  therefore  obliged  to  cast  an- 


VISIT  TO  FORTRESS  MONROE.  367 

chor  and  wait  for  a  clearer  sky.  By  three  o'clock  on  Tuesday  morning 
we  were  again  on  our  way.  We  passed  Aquia  about  daybreak,  and  at 
noon  found  ourselves  tossing  upon  the  waters  of  the  Chesapeake.  It  would 
have  amused  you  to  see  us  at  our  luncheon.  The  President  gave  it  up 
almost  as  soon  as  he  began,  and,  declaring  himself  too  uncomfortable  to 
eat,  stretched  himself  at  length  upon  the  locker.  The  rest  of  us  persisted 
in  eating,  but  the  plates  slipped  this  way  and  that,  the  glasses  tumbled 
over,  and  rolled  about,  and  the  whole  table  seemed  as  topsy-turvy  as  if 
some  spiritist  were  operating  upon  it.  But  we  got  through  at  last,  and 
the  Secretary  of  War  followed  the  example  of  the  President,  while  General 
Viele  and  I  went  on  deck  and  chatted.  The  steamer  had  now  all  sails 
set,  and  with  the  help  of  wind  and  steam  was  moving  handsomely  onward 
at  the  rate  of  about  twelve  knots  an  hour.  But  soon  the  night  began  to 
fall ;  the  wind  died  away ;  from  some  cause  the  fires  in  the  furnaces  burned 
low,  and  our  progress  was  too  sluggish  for  our  eager  wishes.  Just  then, 
as  if  to  fret  us  the  more,  the  Metamora,  coming  from  Cherrystone  with 
the  dispatches,  shot  across  our  track  on  her  way  to  the  Fortress,  and 
keeping  straight  through  a  shoal  which  our  depth  compelled  us  to  go 
around,  was  soon  out  of  sight.  We  kept  steadily  on,  and  between  eight 
and  nine  o'clock  reached  our  destination.  Mr.  Stanton  at  once  sent  a 
message  to  General  Wool,  notifying  him  of  our  arrival ;  and  soon  the 
general,  with  some  members  of  his  staff,  came  on  board.  It  was  now 
near  ten  o'clock.  After  a  short  conference  it  was  determined  that  the 
President,  Mr.  Stanton,  General  Wool  and  myself,  with  General  Viele, 
should  visit  Commodore  Goldsborough  and  talk  with  him  about  the  con 
dition  of  things  and  of  the  things  to  be  done.  As  it  was  not  easy  to  get 
alongside  the  Minnesota  in  the  night,  on  the  revenue  steamer,  we  took  a 
tug,  and  soon  were  within  hailing  distance.  *  Ship  ahoy !  flag-ship  ahoy ! ' 
cried  our  tug-captain.  But  either  his  voice  was  naturally  feeble,  or  in  the 
presence  of  so  many  dignitaries  he  was  a  little  abashed,  for  his  hail  was 
not  at  all  sonorous,  and  brought  no  response.  General  Viele  then  took  up 
the  hail — *  Flag-ship  ahoy  ! '  '  What  do  you  want  ? '  came  back  over  the 
water.  '  General  Wool  wishes  to  go  on  board,'  was  the  reply.  *  Come 
round  on  the  port  side,'  said  the  voice  from  the  ship,  and  round  on  the 
port  side  we  went,  and  there  were  the  narrow  steps  up  the  lofty  side,  and 
the  guiding-ropes  on  either  hand,  hardly  visible  in  the  darkness.  It 
seemed  to  me  very  high  to  the  deck,  and  the  ascent  a  little  fearful. 
Etiquette  required  the  President  to  go  first,  and  he  went.  Etiquette  re 
quired  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  follow,  and  he  followed.  We  got 
up  safely,  of  course,  and  when  up,  it  did  not  seem  so  much  of  a  '  getting 
up-stairs'  after  all. — But  I  must  not  stop  to  describe  the  Minnesota, 
though  the  noble  ship  is  well  worth  description ;  or  to  tell  you  more  of 
the  commodore's  greeting,  except  that  it  was  characteristically  cordial, 
and  that  even  in  the  press  of  business,  he  did  not  forget  to  inquire  cordi 
ally  for  you  and  Katie.  Xor  shall  I  tell  you  of  the  conference,  except  that 


368  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

it  related  to  military  and  naval  movements  in  connection  with  the  dreaded 
Merrimac. 

"  It  was  late  before  we  got  back  to  the  Miami,  where  we  parted  from 
General  Wool  and  his  officers  under  a  promise  to  breakfast  at  headquar 
ters  the  next  morning.  It  did  not  then  take  long  to  get  to  bed  and 
asleep. 

"The  next  morning— yesterday— we  of  the  Miami  were  up  pretty 
early  :  for  somehow  it  is  not  easy  to  sleep  late  on  shipboard ;  and  as  our 
breakfast  was  to  be  at  nine,  Mr.  Stanton  proposed  we  should  visit 
the  Vanderbilt  before  going.  The  boat  of  the  Miami  was  accordingly 
lowered,  and  we  put  off  to  the  great  ship.  She  was  all  ready  for  her  en 
counter  with  the  Merrimac — enormously  strengthened  about  the  bow 
with  heavy  timbers,  so  as  to  be  little  else  for  many  feet,  say  fifty  from  her 
prow,  than  a  mass  of  solid  timber,  plated  outside  with  iron.  We  stood  a 
moment  on  her  wheel-house,  and  looked  down  through  the  immense  di 
ameter  of  her  wheels,  the  frame  of  which  seemed  slight,  but  it  was  in  fact 
of  the  strongest  wrought-iron  bars  and  carefully  adjusted  to  secure  the 
greatest  strength.  The  weight  of  one  wheel  was  one  hundred  tons,  and 
the  diameter  through  which  we  looked  was  forty-two  feet.  From  the 
Vanderbilt  we  sailed  round  the  Monitor  and  the  Stevens,  and  then 
back  to  the  dock.  But  I  must  omit  from  this  letter  an  account  of  our 
breakfast ;  of  our  visit  to  the  Monitor  and  the  Stevens,  and  to  the  Kip- 
Raps  ;  of  Commodore  Goldsborough's  coming,  and  the  discussion  which 
followed  ;  of  the  appearance  of  the  Merrimac,  and  of  her  disappearance ; 
of  the  review,  aud  the  visit  to  ruined  Hampton ;  of  our  dinner  and  the 
discussions  after  dinner;  of  the  determination  that  Commodore  Golds- 
"borough  should  send  the  Galena  and  two  gunboats  up  the  river ;  of  the 
President  and  Mr.  Stanton  staying  with  General  Wool,  while  I  aud  General 
Yiele  returned  to  our  steamer ;  of  how  it  was  determined  to  attempt  the 
reduction  of  the  batteries  at  Sewall's  Point  next  morning ;  how  we,  that 
is,  the  President,  Mr.  Stanton,  and  myself,  went  to  the  Rip-Raps ;  how  the 
fleet  moved  to  the  attack ;  how  the  roar  of  the  first  cannon  broke  upon 
a  Sabbath  silence ;  how  the  great  guns  of  the  Rip-Raps  joined  in  the  fray, 
throwing  enormous  shot  and  shell  more  than  three  miles  at  a  discharge  ; 
how  the  Merrimac  came  down  and  out;  how  the  Monitor  moved  up, 
and  quietly  waited  for  her ;  how  the  big  wooden  ships  got  out  of  the  way, 
that  the  Minnesota  and  the  Vanderbilt  might  have  a  fair  sweep  at  her, 
to  run  her  down ;  how  she  would  not  come  where  they  could  go ;  how 
pluckily  the  little  Stevens  stood  up ;  how  the  Merrimac  finally  retreated 
to  a  point  where  the  Monitor  alone  could  follow  her ;  of  our  return  to 
the  shore,  and  of  preparation  for  the  embarkation  of  the  troops — all  this, 
and  much  more,  I  must  leave  untold  this  morning ;  for  since  I  wrote  the 
first  half  and  more  of  this  letter,  a  night  is  past,  and  the  sun  of  the  8th  of 
May  has  risen  splendidly  over  Fortress  Monroe." 


A  RIDE  TO  HAMPTON. 

"FORTRESS  MONROE,  YiBorifiA,  May  8,  1862. 

" .  .  .  .  MY  letter  to  you  this  morning  closed  abruptly  with  a  mere 
synopsis  of  events.  I  will  now  give  you  a  little  better  idea  what  took 
place  yesterday.  But,  first,  a  word  about  the  review  of  the  day  be 
fore.  The  appearance  of  the  Merrimac  and  the  possibility  of  a  con 
flict  with  her,  had  led  to  a  revocation  of  the  order  which  had  been  given 
for  one.  But  her  retirement  induced  General  Wool  to  propose  that  we 
should  ride  out  to  camp  and  see  what  was  to  be  seen.  The  President 
and  I  went  on  horseback,  while  Mr.  Stanton  and  his  Assistant-Secretary, 
Mr.  Tucker,  went  in  a  carriage,  and  we  started ;  General  Wool  and  his 
staff  forming  a  most  brilliant  feature  of  our  cortege.  We  rode  through 
the  camp  (about  two  miles  from  the  Fortress),  General  Wool  giving  orders 
as  we  passed  along  to  form  the  regiments,  and  make  ready.  We  passed 
on  to  the  village  of  Hampton,  which  was  burned  last  summer  by  order  of 
the  insurgent  General  Magruder.  I  never  saw  such  a  ruin — bare,  black 
ened,  and  crumbling  walls,  on  every  side;  the  court-house,  about  two 
hundred  years  old,  but  of  remarkable  beauty  for  that  time ;  the  old  church, 
amid  the  graves  of  generations,  a  gem  of  a  building — built  of  brick  brought 
from  England  in  the  good  old  time — where  generation  after  generation 
of  Virginians  had  been  baptized,  confirmed,  married,  admitted  to '  the 
communion,  and  dismissed  with  tears  and  benedictions  to  their  last  re 
pose  ;  old  habitations,  some  of  the  upper  and  some  of  the  humbler  classes, 
all  were  involved  in  one  act  of  indiscriminate  destruction.  The  burning 
was  an  act  of  sheer  vandalism. 

"  We  returned  from  Hampton,  feeling  saddened.  As  we  crossed  the 
bridge  beyond  which  the  rebels  had  not  come,  the  contrast  was  very  strik 
ing.  On  this  side,  the  residence  of  John  Tyler,  a  leader  in  the  rebellion, 
and  others  hardly  less  conspicuous,  were  standing  unharmed  by  the  sol 
diers  of  the  Union :  on  that  side,  public  and  private  edifices  were  involved 
in  remorseless  devastation  by  a  general  of  rebellion. 

"  When  we  arrived  at  the  camp,  we  found  the  troops  as  well  prepared 
as  the  suddenness  of  the  order  admitted.  Word  was  given  to  march  in 
review,  and  on  they  came :  first,  the  cavalry  regiments,  well  mounted  and 
well  equipped ;  then  regiment  after  regiment  of  infantry,  looking  hand 
somely  also.  It  was  inspiring  to  see  them  marching  by,  so  orderly  and  so 
strong.  When  they  had  passed  we  rode  on,  but  already  one  regiment  was 
drawn  up  in  line,  and  the  colonel  and  his  troops  were  made  glad  by  the 
President,  who  rode  along  their  line  alone,  uncovered,  and  inspiring  a 
great  enthusiasm.  It  is  delightful,  by-the-way,  to  observe  everywhere  the 
warm  affection  felt  and  expressed  for  the  President. 

"After  the  review,  we  returned  to  headquarters,  where  a  consultation 
took  place,  which  resulted  in  an  order  from  the  President  to  Flag-officer 
Goldsborough  to  send  the  Galena  and  two  gunboats  up  the  James  River 
toward  Richmond.  Captain  Rogers,  who  behaved  so  gallantly  at  Port 
Royal,  commanded  the  Galena,  and  I  have  seldom  seen  a  man  more  grati 
fied  by  a  commission  to  do  something.  He  grasped  my  hand,  and  thanked 
24 


370  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

me  warmly  for  my  support  of  his  views.     So  closed  day  before  yesterday, 
when  General  Viele  and  myself  went  on  board  the  Miami  to  our  sleep. 

"  Yesterday  morning  we  came  ashore  early,  having  been  brought  down 
by  a  tug.  Commodore  Goldsborough  came  at  the  same  time  on  a  sum 
mons  from  the  President,  and  it  was  then  determined  that  an  attack 
should  be  made  on  the  batteries  on  Sewell's  Point.  After  the  order  had 
been  given,  the  President,  Mr.  Stanton  and  myself,  went  over  to  the  Rip- 
Raps  in  a  tug  to  observe  its  execution.  It  was  not  a  great  while  before 
the  ships  were  in  motion.  The  Serninole  took  the  lead,  followed  by  the 
San  Jacinto  and  the  Dakota,  and  finally  the  Susquehanna,  whose  captain, 
Lardner,  was  the  commanding  officer  of  the  vessels  engaged.  With  these 
ships  were  the  Monitor,  and  the  little  gunboat  Stevens — which  Commo 
dore  Stevens  presented  to  the  Treasury  Department,  and  which  I  chris 
tened  the  Stevens  in  honor  of  the  giver.  Her  name  before  being  made  into 
a  gunboat  was  the  Naugatuck,  and  she  is  sometimes  even  now  mistakenly 
called  by  that  name.  By-and-by  the  Seminole  reached  her  position,  and  a 
belch  of  smoke,  followed  in  a  few  seconds  by  a  report  like  distant  thunder, 
announced  the  beginning  of  the  canonnade.  Then  came  the  guns  from  the 
Rip-Raps,  where  we  were ;  and  soon  the  Monitor  and  the  Stevens^  oined. 
In  a  short  time  the  small  battery  on  the  extreme  point  was  silenced ;  and 
the  attack  was  directed  against  a  battery  inside  the  point,  and  a  half-mile 
or  a  mile  nearer  Norfolk.  While  this  was  going  on,  a  smoke  curled  up 
over  the  woods  on  Sewell's  Point,  five  or  six  miles  from  its  termina 
tion,  and  each  man  said  to  his  neighbor,  '  There  comes  the  Merrimac ; ' 
and,  sure  enough,  the  Merrimac  was  coming.  Before  she  made  her  ap 
pearance,  we  had  left  the  Rip-Raps  and  had  reached  the  landing  on  our 
way  to  headquarters,  and  just  as  we  were  going  ashore,  the  monster  came 
slowly  out  from  behind  the  Point,  and  all  the  big  wooden  vessels  began 
to  haul  off.  The  Monitor  and  the  Stevens,  however,  held  their  ground. 
The  Merrimac  still  came  on  slowly,  and  in  a  little  while  there  was  a  clear 
space  of  water  between  her  and  the  Monitor.  Then  the  great  rebel  terror 
paused ;  then  turned  back,  and  having  finally  obtained  what  she  probably 
considered  a  safe  position,  became  stationary.  This  was  the  end  of  the 
battle.  Its  results  were,  on  our  side,  nothing  and  nobody  hurt,  with  a 
certainty  that  the  battery  at  the  extreme  of  the  Point  was  rendered  use 
less,  and  that  the  battery  inside  was  much  less  strong  and  much  less 
strongly  manned  than  had  been  supposed.  The  results  on  the  rebel  side 
we  cannot  tell,  but  only  know  that  their  barracks  were  burned  by  our 
shells.  Another  certainty  is,  that  the  Merrimac  does  not  want  to  fight,  and 
won't  fight  if  she  can  help  it,  except  with  more  advantages  than  she  is 
likely  to  have  in  her  favor.  This  has  been  a  very  interesting  day,  but  I 
must  not  write  more." 

"Os  BOABD  STEAMEB  BALTIMOBE,  May  11, 1862. 

".  .  .  .  I  closed  my  last  letter  to  you  with  a  brief  account  of  the 
bombardment.  That  was  thought  to  have  shown  the  inutility  of  an  at- 


THE  SEARCH  FOR  A  LANDING-PLACE.  371 

tempt  to  land  at  Sewell's  Point  while  the  Merrimac  lay  watching  it,  and 
it  at  once  became  a  question  what  should  be  done  ?  Three  plans  only 
seemed  feasible:  1.  To  send  all  the  troops  that  could  be  spared  around  to 
Burnside,  and  let  him  come  in  upon  Norfolk  from  the  south ;  2.  To  send 
them  up  the  James  River  to  aid  General  McClellan ;  or,  3.  To  seek  another 
landing-place  out  of  reach  of  the  Merrimac.  In  this  state  of  things,  I 
offered  to  take  the  Miami — if  a  tug  of  less  draught  and  capable,  therefore, 
of  putting  in  nearer  shore,  could  accompany  me — and  make  an  examination, 
in  company  with  an  officer,  of  the  coast  east  of  the  Point.  Colonel  Cram 
offered  to  go,  and  finally  General  Wool  said  he  would  accompany  us  also. 
We  started  accordingly,  and  having  arrived  opposite  a  point  which  I  mark 
4  A'  on  the  poor  draught  I  send  you — don't  laugh  at  it — sent  a  boat's  crew 
ashore  to  find  the  depth  of  water.  We  had  already  approached  within 
five  hundred  yards  in  the  Miami,  and  the  tug  had  approached  within  per 
haps  a  hundred  yards  of  the  shore.  The  boats  went  very  near  land,  and 
then,  somewhat  to  my  surprise,  pulled  away.  When  they  returned  to  the 
boat  the  mystery  was  explained.  They  had  seen  an  enemy's  picket,  and  a 
soldier  standing  up  beckoning  his  companions  to  lie  close,  and  they  had 
inferred  an  ambush  and  pulled  off  to  avoid  being  fired  at.  When  Colonel 
Cram  and  the  officer  of  the  boat  came  on  board,  they  could  still  see  the 
picket  on  horseback,  and  pointed  his  position  out  to  me  ;  but  I  being  near 
sighted  could  not  see.  It  was  plain  enough  that  there  was  no  use  in  land 
ing  men  to  be  fired  upon  and  overcome  by  a  superior  force,  and  so  the 
order  was  given  to  get  under  way  to  return  to  Fortress  Monroe.  We  had, 
however,  accomplished  our  main  purpose,  having  found  the  water  suffi 
ciently  deep  to  admit  of  a  landing  without  any  very  serious  difficulty.  But 
just  as  we  were  going  away,  a  white  flag  was  seen  waving  over  the  sand 
bank  on  shore,  and  the  general  ordered  it  to  be  answered  at  once,  which 
was  done  by  fastening  a  ~bed-sheet  to  the  flag-line  and  running  it  up. 
Thereupon  several  colored  people  appeared  on  shore — all  women  and  chil 
dren.  Fearing  that  the  flag  and  the  appearance  of  these  colored  persons 
might  be  a  cover  intended  to  get  our  people  within  reach  of  rifle-shot,  I 
directed  two  boats  to  go  ashore,  with  full  crews  well  armed.  They  went, 
and  pretty  soon  I  saw  Colonel  Cram  talking  with  the  people  on  shore, 
while  some  of  the  men  were  walking  about  the  beach.  Presently  one  boat 
pulled  off  toward  the  ship  ;  and  when  she  had  come  quite  near,  I  observed 
the  colored  people  going  up  the  sand-bank,  and  Colonel  Cram  preparing 
to  return  with  the  other  boat.  It  occurred  to  me  that  these  poor  persons 
might  have  desired  to  go  to  Fortress  Monroe,  and  had  been  refused.  So  I 
determined  to  go  ashore  myself,  and  jumping  into  the  returned  boat,  was 
quickly  on  the  beach.  The  colonel  reported  his  examination  entirely  sat 
isfactory,  and  I  found  that  none  of  the  colored  people  (one  of  whom  turned 
out,  however,  to  be  a  white  woman  living  near  by)  wanted  to  leave ;  and 
we  returned  to  the  ship.  These  colored  women  and  children,  and  the  one 
white  one,  were  the  soldiers — except,  perhaps,  the  picket  on  horseback — 


372  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

who  had  alarmed  our  folks.  But  we  had  made  an  important  discovery :  a 
good  and  convenient  landing-place,  some  five  or  six  miles  distant  from 
Fortress  Monroe,  capable  of  receiving  any  number  of  troops,  and  communi 
cating  with  Norfolk  by  quite  passable  roads  ;  at  a  distance,  by  one  route, 
of  eight  or  nine,  and  by  another,  of  twelve  or  thirteen  miles.  When  I  got 
back  to  the  Fortress,  I  found  the  President  had  been  listening  to  a  pilot 
and  studying  a  chart,  and  had  become  impressed  with  a  conviction  that 
there  was  a  nearer  landing,  and  wished  to  go  and  see  it  at  once.  So  we 
started  again,  and  soon  reached  the  shore  ;  taking  with  us  a  large  boat  and 
some  twenty  armed  soldiers  from  the  Rip-Raps.  The  President  and  Mr. 
Stanton  were  on  the  tug  and  I  on  the  Miami.  The  tug  was  of  course  near 
est  the  shore,  and  as  soon  as  she  found  the  water  too  shoal  for  her  to  go 
farther  safely,  the  Rip-Raps  boat  was  manned.  Meantime  I  had  the  Miami 
prepared  for  action,  her  long-range  gun  trained  on  shore,  with  her  other 
pieces  ready  for  support,  and  directed  the  captain  to  land  with  both  boats 
and  all  the  men  they  could  take  fully  armed.  Before  this  could  be  done, 
however,  several  horsemen  who  seemed  to  be  soldiers  of  the  enemy,  ap 
peared  on  the  beach.  I  sent  to  the  President  to  ask  if  we  should  fire  on 
them,  and  he  replied  negatively.  We  had  again  found  a  good  landing, 
which,  at  the  time,  I  supposed  to  be  between  two  and  three  miles  nearer 
Fortress  Monroe  than  the  one  first  found,  but  it  turned  out  to  be  only  about 
one-half  or  three-quarters  of  a  mile  nearer. 

"  Returning  to  the  Fortress,  it  was  determined  that  an  advance  should 
be  immediately  made  upon  Norfolk  from  one  of  these  landings.  General 
Wool  preferred  the  one  he  had  visited,  and  it  was  selected.  It  was  now 
night,  but  the  preparations  for  the  work  proceeded  with  great  activity. 
Four  regiments  were  sent  off,  and  others  were  ordered  to  follow.  Colonel 
Cram  went  down  to  make  a  bridge  of  boats  to  the  landing ;  and  General 
Wool  asked  me  to  accompany  him  the  next  morning.  Meantime,  I  placed 
the  Miami  at  the  command  of  Colonel  Cram,  to  accompany  the  transports 
and  protect  the  debarkation. 

"  Next  morning  (yesterday)  I  was  up  early.  We  breakfasted  at  six 
o'clock,  and  got  away  as  promptly  as  possible.  When  we  reached  the 
place  selected  for  the  landing,  we  found  that  a  considerable  body  of  troops 
had  already  gone  forward.  I  then  took  the  tug  and  went  along  the  shore 
to  the  point  where  the  President's  boat  had  attempted  to  land  the  evening 
before,  and  found  it  only  about  three-quarters  of  a  mile  distant.  I  then 
returned  to  the  Miami,  and  found  that  the  general  had  gone  ashore.  I 
followed,  and  on  the  shore  met  General  Viele.  He  asked  me  if  I  would 
like  a  horse.  I  said  that  I  would,  and  he  directed  one  to  be  brought  to 
me,  and  I  was  soon  mounted.  I  then  proposed  to  ride  up  to  the  place 
where  the  pickets  had  been  seen  the  night  before.  General  Viele  agreed, 
and  we  were  not  long  in  getting  up  as  far  as  I  had  been  with  the  tug,  and 
even  some  distance  beyond.  We  found  a  shed  where  a  picket  had  staid 
the  night  before,  and  found  fresh  horse-tracks  in  many  places,  showing 


THE  TAKING  OF  NORFOLK.  373 

plainly  that  the  enemy  had  withdrawn  but  a  few  hours  previously.  Re 
turning,  I  made  report  to  General  Wool.  Meantime,  Mr.  Stanton  had 
come,  and  he  asked  me  to  go  on  with  the  expedition,  which  I  finally  deter 
mined  to  do.  I  accordingly  asked  General  Wool  for  a  squad  of  dragoons, 
and  for  permission  to  ride  on  with  General  Viele  ahead  of  him,  following 
the  advance  which  had  already  been  gone  some  three  or  four  hours.  He 
acceded  to  both  requests,  and  we  went  on ;  that  is,  General  Viele,  myself, 
and  a  half-dozen  dragoons.  After  about  five  miles  we  came  up  with  the 
rear  of  the  advance,  and  soon  heard  artillery-firing  in  the  front.  Then,  as 
we  continued  on,  we  heard  that  the  bridge  which  we  expected  to  cross 
was  burned,  and  that  Generals  Mansfield  and  Weber  were  returning. 
About  half  or  three-quarters  from  the  burning  bridge  we  met  them,  and, 
of  course,  turned  back  ourselves.  Returning  in  this  way,  we  met  General 
Wool,  who  determined  to  leave  a  guard  on  this  route  and  take  another  to 
Norfolk.  There  was  now  a  good  deal  of  confusion,  to  remedy  which,  and 
to  provide  for  contingencies,  General  Wool — to  whom  I  now  attached  my 
self  as  a  sort  of  volunteer  aid — sent  General  Mansfield  to  Newport  News  to 
bring  forward  his  brigade,  and  then  divided  his  own  troops  into  two 
brigades ;  assigning  General  Viele  to  the  command  of  one  and  General 
Weber  to  the  command  of  the  other.  Affairs  now  went  much  better. 
The  cavalry,  under  Major  Dodge,  were  in  the  advance ;  General  Wool  and 
his  staff  next;  then  a  body  of  sharp-shooter  skirmishers;  then  the  main 
body  of  Viele's  brigade;  then  Weber's.  We  stopped  everybody  from 
whom  we  could  obtain  information,  and  it  was  not  long  before  we  were 
informed,  by  one  of  the  persons  we  thus  stopped,  that  he  had  just  come 
through  the  intended  camp  where  we  expected  the  rebels  would  fight,  if 
anywhere;  and  that  it  had  just  been  evacuated  and  the  barracks  fired. 
This  agreeable  news  was  confirmed  by  the  arrival  of  one  of  Major  Dodge's 
dragoons,  who  told  us  that  the  cavalry  were  already  in  the  enemy's  aban 
doned  camp.  We  soon  ourselves  arrived  within  the  work — a  very  strong 
one — defended  by  many  heavy  guns,  of  which  twenty-one  still  remained  in 
position.  The  troops,  as  they  came  on  through  the  entrance,  gave  cheer 
after  cheer,  and  were  immediately  formed  into  line  for  the  march  to  Nor 
folk,  now  but  two  miles  distant.  General  Wool  now  invited  General 
Viele,  General  Weber,  and  Major  Dodge,  to  ride  with  us  in  front ;  and  so 
we  proceeded  till  we  met  a  deputation  of  the  city  authorities,  who  formal 
ly  surrendered  the  city.  We — General  Wool  and  myself— entered  a  car 
riage  with  two  of  the  deputation,  and  General  Viele  another  carriage  with 
others  of  the  deputation,  and  we  drove  into  the  town  and  to  the  City  Hall, 
where  the  general  completed  his  arrangements  for  taking  possession  of  the 
city.  These  being  completed,  and  General  Viele  being  left  in  charge  as 
military  governor,  General  Wool  and  myself  set  out  on  our  return  to  Ocean 
View,  the  name  of  our  landing-place,  in  the  carriage  which  had  brought 
us  to  the  City  Hall;  which  carriage,  by-the-way,  was  that  used  by  the  rebel 
General  Huger,  and  he  had  perhaps  been  riding  in  it  that  very  morning. 


374  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

It  was  sundown  when  we  left  Norfolk ;  about  ten  when  we  reached  Ocean 
View,  and  near  twelve  when  we  reached  Fortress  Monroe.  The  Presi 
dent  had  been  greatly  alarmed  for  our  safety  by  the  report  of  General 
Mansfield,  as  he  went  by  Newport  News ;  and  you  can  imagine  his  delight 
when  we  told  him  Norfolk  was  ours.  Mr.  Stanton  soon  came  into  the 
President's  room,  and  was  equally  delighted.  He  fairly  hugged  General 
Wool.  For  my  part,  I  was  very  tired  and  was  glad  to  get  to  bed. 

"  This  morning,  as  the  President  had  determined  to  return  to  Washing 
ton  at  seven  o'clock,  I  arose  at  six,  and  just  before  seven  went  into  the 
parlor,  where  I  found  Flag-officer  Goldsborough,  who  astonished  and 
gratified  us  all  by  telling  us  that  the  rebels  had  set  fire  to  the  Merrimac, 
and  had  blown  her  up.  It  was  then  determined  that,  before  leaving,  we 
would  go  up  in  the  steamer  Baltimore — which  was  to  convey  us  to  Wash 
ington — to  the  point  where  the  suicide  had  been  performed,  and  above  the 
obstructions  in  the  channel  if  possible,  so  as  to  be  sure  of  the  access  to 
Norfolk  by  water,  which  had  been  intercepted  by  the  exploded  ship. 
This  was  done,  but  it  took  us  longer  than  we  supposed  it  would.  We 
went  up  to  the  wharves  of  Norfolk,  where,  in  the  Elizabeth  River,  were 
already  lying  the  Monitor,  the  Stevens,  the  Susquehanna,  and  one  or 
two  other  vessels.  General  Wool  and  Commodore  Goldsborough  had 
come  up  with  us  on  the  Baltimore,  and  as  soon  as  they  were  transferred  to 
the  Susquehanna,  our  prow  was  turned  down-stream,  and  touching  for 
a  moment  at  the  Fortress,  we  kept  on  our  way  toward  Washington,  where 
we  hope  to  arrive  before  breakfast-time  to-morrow. 

"  So  ended  a  brilliant  week's  campaign  by  the  President ;  for  I  think  it 
quite  certain  that  if  he  had  not  gone  down,  Norfolk  would  still  have  been 
in  the  possession  of  the  enemy,  and  the  Merrimac  as  grim  and  defiant,  and 
as  much  a  terror  as  ever.  The  whole  coast  is  now  virtually  ours,  for  there 
is  no  port  which  the  Monitor  and  the  Stevens  cannot  take. 

"  It  was  both  sad  and  pleasant  to  see  the  Union  flag  waving  once  more 
over  Norfolk  and  the  shipping  in  the  harbor,  and  to  think  of  the  destruc 
tion  accomplished  there  but  a  little  more  than  a  year  ago. 

"  I  went  to  Norfolk  yesterday  by  land  with  the  army ;  this  morning 
by  water  with  the  navy.  My  campaign,  too,  is  over.  Good-by. 

"  Send  these  letters  to  sister." 

To  Mr.  Stanton,  the  Secretary  of  War. 

"  WASHINGTON,  May  80, 1862. 

" .  .  .  .  The  President  did  not  give  me  a  chance  to  express  my  views, 
in  reply  to  your  inquiry  if  *  I  could  not  be  convinced.7  Otherwise  I  should 
have  said  something  more. 

"I  am  your  friend  and  anxious  well-wisher,  because  you  are  your 
country's  friend  and  well-wisher,  and  more,  her  hard- worker. 

"  It  is  not  difficult  for  me  to  yield  opinions,  except  when  they  seem  to 
me  impregnable  in  reason  and  fact.  I  only  ask  you  to  look  calmly  at 


EMANCIPATION.  375 

the  probable  consequences  before  you  issue  a  new  call  for  three  months' 
men. 

"  Reflect  that  the  law  expressly  limits  the  acceptance  of  volunteers  to 
those  serving  not  less  than  six  months,  and  does  not  authorize  the  calling 
out  of  militia  under  existing  circumstances  (Acts  of  1861,  p.  268).  The 
emergency  must  be  real  and  imminent  which  will  warrant  a  call  without 
law,  and  Congress  in  session. 

"  Consider  the  time  required  to  get  them ;  their  comparative  useless- 
ness  when  got ;  the  certainty  of  arresting  enlistments  for  the  war  while 
the  short  call  is  being  filled ;  the  increase  of  difficulty  in  obtaining  such 
enlistments  when  the  call  has  been  filled;  the  numbers  already  in  the 
field ;  the  importance  of  supplying  the  losses  in  the  existing  three-years 
army  by  recruits  of  like  terms  of  service.  But  enough.  I  am  perhaps 
wrong  in  pressing  this  matter.  It  is  easy  to  overrule  me.  .  .  . 

To  Major-  General  Butler,  at  New  Orleans. 

"  WASHINGTON,  June  24, 1862. 

"  ....  I  am  sorry  to  see  that  you  thought  it  necessary  to  punish 
thieves  with  death.  It  is  a  dreadful  penalty  for  such  offenses,  and  you 
would  not,  I  am  sure,  sanction  its  infliction  if  the  circumstances  did  not 
demand  it. 

"  It  is  quite  plain  you  do  not  find  it  so  easy  to  deal  with  the  contra 
band  question  as  at  Fortress  Monroe.  Of  course,  until  the  Government 
shall  adopt  a  settled  policy,  the  commanding  generals  will  be  greatly  em 
barrassed  by  it.  In  my  judgment,  it  is  indispensable  to  fix  upon  some 
principle  of  action  and  abide  by  it.  Until  long  after  the  fall  of  Sumter, 
I  clung  to  my  old  ideas  of  non-interference  with  slavery  within  State  limits 
by  the  Federal  Government.  It  was  my  hope  and  belief  that  the  rebellion 
might  be  suppressed,  and  slavery  left  to  the  free  disposition  of  the  States 
within  which  the  institution  existed.  By  them,  I  thought  it  certain  that 
the  removal  of  the  institution  would  be  gradually  effected  without  shock 
or  disturbance  or  injury,  but  peaceably  and  beneficially.  But  the  war  has 
been  protracted  far  beyond  my  anticipations,  and  with  the  postpone 
ment  of  decisive  results  came  increased  bitterness  and  intensified  aliena 
tion  of  nearly  the  entire  white  population  of  the  slave  States.  With  this 
state  of  facts  came  the  conviction  to  my  mind  that  the  restoration  of  the 
old  Union  with  slavery  untouched  except  by  the  mere  weakening  effects 
of  the  war,  was  impossible.  Looking  attentively  at  the  new  state  of 
things,  I  became  satisfied  that  a  great  majority  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  had  made  up  their  minds  that  the  constitutional  supremacy  of  the 
national  Government  should  be  vindicated,  and  the  territorial  integrity 
of  the  country  maintained,  come  or  go  what  might.  I  became  satisfied 
also  that  to  secure  the  accomplishment  of  these  great  objects,  slavery  must 
go.  That  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  under  the  war  power 
might  destroy  slavery  I  never  doubted.  I  only  doubted  the  expediency 


376  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

of  its  exercise.  When  I  saw  that  to  abstain  from  military  interference 
with  slavery  was  simply  to  contribute  the  whole  moral  and  physical  power 
of  the  Government  to  the  continued  subjugation  of  nearly  four  million 
loyal  people,  that  doubt  was  gone.  In  my  judgment,  the  military  order 
of  General  Hunter  should  have  been  sustained.  The  President,  who  is  as 
sound  in  head  as  he  is  excellent  in  heart,  thought  otherwise  ;  and  I,  as  in 
duty  bound,  submit  my  judgment  to  his.  The  language  of  the  President's 
proclamation  clearly  shows  that  his  mind  is  not  finally  decided.  It  points 
to  a  contingency  in  which  he  may  recognize  the  clear  necessity.  My  con 
viction  is,  that  that  contingency  will  soon  arise,  if  misfortunes  so  great  do 
not  occur  as  to  overturn  all  anticipations.  .  .  ." 

To  the  Hon.  Pierre  Soule,  in  Fort  Lafayette. 

u  WASHINGTON,  July  5, 1862. 

"  .  .  .  .  The  memories  of  the  happier  days,  when  we  were  associated 
in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  are  yet  fresh  in  my  mind,  and  prompt 
every  wish  to  serve  you  in  any  mode,  not  incompatible  with  my  public 
duties,  which  you  can  desire. 

14 1  have  called  the  attention  of  the  President  and  of  the  Secretary  of 
War  to  the  letter  which  you  addressed  to  me  under  date  of  the  27th  of 
June,  and  regret  the  necessity  of  informing  you  that  they  decline  entering 
into  any  explanations  or  making  any  further  order  in  your  case  at  present. 

"  Would  to  God  that  you  and  the  thousands  of  others  *  who  had  no 
share  or  agency  in  bringing  forth  this  revolution,'  had  not  thought  it 
your  duty  to  acquiesce  in  the  action  of  the  majority  or  minority  (be  it 
which  it  may)  by  which  the  official  organization  of  the  State  was  placed 
in  armed  opposition  to  the  constitutional  authority  of  the  Government  of 
the  whole  country  !  Had  this  not  been,  the  bright  old  days  would  already 
have  been  brighter  new  days." 

To  Major-  General  Butler,  at  New  Orleans. 

"  WASHINGTON,  July  81, 1862. 

w  ....  I  have  not  seen  the  instructions,  if  any  have  been  prepared, 
which  General  Shepley  is  to  take  back  with  him  to  New  Orleans ;  nor 
has  it  so  happened  that  I  have  talked  with  either  the  President  or  Mr. 
Stanton  on  the  subject  of  such  instructions.  All  I  know  of  the  President's 
views  is,  intimations  I  have  heard  from  him,  that  it  may  possibly  become 
necessary,  in  order  to  keep  the  river  open  below  Memphis,  to  turn  the 
heavy  black  population  of  its  banks  into  defenders. 

"  You  will  see  from  what  I  have  written  that  in  what  I  have  to  say  on 
the  important  topic  touched  in  your  letter  by  way  of  reply  to  mine  of  June 
24th,  I  shall  express  only  my  own  opinions ;  opinions,  however,  to  which  I 
am  just  as  sure  the  masses  will  and  the  politicians  must  come,  as  I  am  sure 
that  both  politicians  and  masses  have  come  to  opinions  expressed  by  me 
when  they  found  few  concurrents. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  EMANCIPATION.  377 

"  I  begin  with  the  proposition  that  we  must  either  abandon  the  at 
tempt  to  retain  the  Gulf  States,  or  that  we  must  give  freedom  to  every 
slave  within  their  limits.  We  cannot  maintain  the  contest  with  the  dis 
advantages  of  unaccliinated  troops  and  distant  supplies  against  an  enemy 
able  to  bring  one-half  the  population  under  arms,  with  the  other  half  held 
to  labor,  at  no  cost  except  that  of  bare  subsistence,  for  the  armed  moiety. 
Still  less  can  we  maintain  the  contest  if  all  we  do  must  necessarily  enrage 
and  alienate  the  military  half,  while  we  do  nothing  to  conciliate,  but  very 
much  to  disaffect,  the  laboring  half.  * 

"  I  have  not  time  to  argue  this  out,  or  even  to  qualify  as  might  be  nec 
essary  to  avoid  captious  objection,  the  generality  of  my  statement.  Of  ita 
substantial  accuracy  I  am  certain. 

"  As  to  the  border  States,  even  including  Arkansas,  a  different  rule  may 
be  adopted.  In  these  States  the  President's  plan  of  compensated  emanci 
pation  may  be  adequate  to  a  solution  of  the  slavery  question ;  though  I 
confess  my  apprehensions  that  the  slaveholders  of  these  States  will  delay 
acceptance  of  the  proposition  until  it  will  become  impossible  to  induce 
Congress  to  vote  the  compensation.  Should  compensated  emancipation 
fail  in  those  States,  emancipation  will  not  be  the  less  a  necessity ;  and 
prompt  emancipation,  as  a  military  measure  in  the  Gulf  States,  will  facili 
tate  it  by  affording  a  convenient  and  easy  outlet  for  the  freedmen. 

u  It  will  not  escape  your  acute  observation  that  military  emancipation 
in  the  Gulf  States  will  settle,  or  largely  contribute  to  settle,  the  negro  ques 
tion  in  the  Free  States.  I  am  not  myself  afraid  of  the  negroes.  I  have 
not  the  slightest  objection  to  their  contributing  their  industry  to  the  pros 
perity  of  the  State  of  which  I  am  a  citizen,  or  to  their  being  protected  in 
their  rights  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  by  the  same  laws 
which  protect  me.  But  I  know  that  many  honest  men  really  think  that 
they  are  not  to  be  permitted  to  reside  permanently  in  the  Northern  States, 
and  I  believe  myself  that,  if  left  free  to  choose,  most  of  them  would  prefer 
warmer  climes  to  ours.  Let  the  South  be  opened  to  negro  emigration  by 
emancipation  along  the  Gulf,  and  it  seems  pretty  certain  that  the  blacks  of 
the  North  will  go  southward,  and  leave  behind  them  no  question  to  quar 
rel  over,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned. 

"  This  rough  statement  sufficiently  presents  my  general  view. 

"  Now  for  its  practical  application  in  Louisiana.  Of  course  if  some 
•prudential  consideration  did  not  forbid,  I  should  at  once,  if  I  were  in  your 
place,  notify  the  slaveholders  of  Louisiana  that  henceforth  they  must  be 
content  to  pay  their  laborers  wages.  This  measure  would  settle  it  in  the 
minds  of  the  working-population  of  the  State  that  the  Union  general  is 
their  friend ;  would  be  apt  to  secure  him  a  good  deal  of  devotion  among 
them  ;  and  when  he  wanted  faithful  guides  or  scouts,  he  could  find  them. 
It  is  quite  true  that  such  an  order  could  not  be  enforced  by  military  power 
beyond  military  lines ;  but  it  would  enforce  itself  by  degrees  a  good  way 
beyond  them,  and  would  make  the  extension  of  military  lines  compara 
tively  quite  easy. 


378  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  It  may  be  said  that  such  an  order  would  be  annulled.  I  think  not./  It 
is  plain  enough  to  see  that  the  annulling  of  Hunter's  order  was  a  mistake. 
It  will  not  be  repeated. 

"  Do  the  acts  of  Congress  leave,  indeed,  much  room  for  choice,  if  those 
acts  are  to  be  faithfully  obeyed  ?  The  act  of  last  year  declared  the  slaves 
of  all  persons,  if  employed  in  aid  of  the  rebellion,  free.  The  acts  of  this 
last  session  declare  free  the  slaves  of  all  persons  who  themselves  engage  in 
rebellion,  or  aid  and  abet  it ;  prohibit  the  return  of  fugitives  by  military 
commanders ;  and  authorize  the  employment  of  slaves  in  the  service  of  the 
Union  either  as  laborers  or  in  arms,  or  both,  at  the  discretion  of  the  Presi 
dent.  How  these  acts  can  be  executed  and  slavery  maintained,  especially 
where  slaves  are  numerous,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  conceive. 

"  I  think  the  President  feels  this  difficulty.  .  .  .  Hence,  the  other  day, 
when  some  conversation  occurred  about  General  Hunter,  he  was  very  far 
from  expressing  the  same  dissatisfaction  with  General  Hunter's  course  that 
he  would  have  done  five  or  six  weeks  ago. 

"  The  truth  is,  there  has  been  a  great  change  in  the  public  mind  within 
a  few  weeks.  The  people  are  resolved  not  to  give  up  the  struggle  for  ter 
ritorial  integrity.  They  mean  to  keep  every  inch  of  American  soil  in  the 
United  States.  Whatever  stands  in  the  way  of  this  determination  must  get 
out  of  the  way.  If  State  organizations,  they  must  fall ;  if  negro  slavery,  it 
must  be  abolished. 

"  Now  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is  just  as  well  to  make  the  shortest  pos 
sible  work  of  this  as  the  longest  possible.  Negro  slavery  should  first  fall 
where  it  has  done  most  mischief,  and  where  its  extinction  will  do  most 
good  in  weakening  rebellion  and  incidentally  otherwise  in  the  extreme 
South.  .  .  . 

"  You  must  determine,  in  the  exercise  of  your  own  good  judgment,  what 
prudence  will  permit ;  but  so  far  as  prudence  allows,  you  may  certainly 
well  go.  .  .  ." 

To  Major-  General  John  Pope,  Army  of  Virginia. 

"  WASHINGTON,  August  1, 1862. 

u ....  I  am  not  quite  certain  that  it  is  best  to  exact  an  oath  of 
allegiance  as  a  condition  of  permission  to  remain  within  our  lines.  It  is 
so  easily  taken  and  broken  ;  and  besides  it  seems  hardly  fair  to  demand  it 
when  we  are  not  sure  of  being  able  to  afford  the  corresponding  protection. 
Would  it  not  suffice  to  exact  absolute  acquiescence  in  the  Union  occupa 
tion,  and  punish  severely  and  summarily  all  correspondence  with  rebels 
and  expressions  of  hostility  to  the  Government  ? 

"  Allow  me  to  express  a  hope  that  you  will  deal  generously  and  kindly 
with  the  blacks,  who  are  almost  all  loyal.  They  have  rendered  great  ser 
vices  in  many  cases,  and  have  then  been  given  up  to  slavery.  This  is  too 
bad.  If  I  were  in  the  field,  I  would  let  every  man  understand  that  no 
man  loyal  to  the  Union  can  be  a  slave.  We  must  come  to  this.  The 
public  sentiment  of  the  world,  common-sense,  and  common  justice,  demand 


EMANCIPATION— CONDUCT  OF  THE  WAR.  379 

it.    The  sooner  we  respect  the  demand,  the  better  for  us  and  for  our 
cause. 

To  Robert  Dale  Owen,  Esq. 

"  WASHINGTON,  September  20, 18C2. 

".  .  .  .  Your  note,  with  your  admirable  letter  on  emancipation  ad 
dressed  to  me,  came  duly.  My  own  judgment,  as  I  said  to  you  in 
conversation,  has  inclined  to  emancipation  by  military  orders,  founded 
on  military  exigencies,  and  made  by  the  commanding  general  of  the  two 
great  Southern  departments,  rather  than  general  emancipation  by  procla 
mation  of  the  President.  Convinced,  however,  as  I  am,  of  the  indispen 
sable  necessity  of  the  thing,  I  am  comparatively  indifferent  as  to  the  mode, 
and  am  entirely  ready  to  stand  by  you  in  support  of  yours. 

u  Yesterday  your  letter  to  the  President  came,  and  I  lost  no  time,  after 
submitting  it  to  the  perusal  of  Mr.  Stanton,  in  placing  it  in  the  hands  of 
the  President.  I  have  not  seen  him  since. 

"  It  cannot  fail  to  impress  him  powerfully.  God  grant  that  it  may  im 
pel  him  to  action  !  You  will  hardly  ever  accomplish  a  greater  work  than 
this  letter.  It  seems  to  me  impossible  to  exceed  the  force  and  energy  with 
which  you  have  urged  the  subliinest  of  duties.  The  letter  thrilled  me  like 
a  bugle-call ;  and  when  published,  as  it  should  be,  I  hope  it  may  prove  a 
trumpet  of  resurrection  to  our  people. 

"  The  rebels  are  driven  out  of  Maryland,  but  they  have  taken  out  with 
them  all  their  artillery,  trains,  and  spoils.  Still,  it  is  much  that  their  au 
dacious  designs  oh  Maryland,  Pennsylvania,  and  Washington,  are  defeated. 
Oh,  that  the  President  and  those  who  control  military  movements,  may 
see  the  necessity  of  following  up  vigorously  and  indefatigably  the  success 
now  achieved,  by  blow  on  blow  till  the  rebellion  is  finally  crushed ! " 

To  Senator  John  Sherman,  of  Ohio. 

"WASHINGTON,  September  20, 1862. 

"...  .  The  future  does  not  look  promising  to  me,  though  it  may  be 
brighter  than  it  seems  likely  to  be. 

"  Since  General  Halleck  has  been  here  the  conduct  of  the  war  has  been 
abandoned  to  him  by  the  President  almost  absolutely.  We  who  are  called 
members  of  the  cabinet,  but  are  in  reality  only  separate  heads  of  depart 
ments,  meeting  now  and  then  for  talk  on  whatever  happens  to  come  up 
permost — not  for  grave  consultation  on  matters  concerning  the  salvation 
of  the  country — we  have  as  little  to  do  with  it  as  if  we  were  heads  of 
factories  supplying  shoes  or  clothing.  No  regular  and  systematic  reports 
of  what  is  done  are  made,  I  believe,  even  to  the  President ;  certainly  none 
are  made  to  the  cabinet. 

"  Of  course,  we  may  hope  the  best ;  that  privilege  always  remains.  It 
is  painful,  however,  to  hear  complaints  of  remissness,  delays,  discords,  dan 
gers,  and  feel  that  there  must  be  ground  for  such  complaints,  and  know  at 
the  same  time  that  one  has  no  power  to  remedy  the  evils  complained  of 


380  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

and  yet  be  thought  to  have.  I  saw  the  Neil  House  on  fire,  and  felt  sick  at 
heart  to  think  I  could  do  nothing  to  arrest  the  progress  of  the  conflagra 
tion.  Comparing  great  things  to  small,  I  experience  similar  feelings  now. 
The  difference  is,  that  no  one  thought  me  responsible  for  the  administra 
tion  of  the  fire  department  of  Columbus. 

"  Well,  the  rebel  army  is  withdrawn  from  Maryland,  and  that  is  some 
thing,  but  far  less  than  we  anticipated.  We  hoped  it  would  not  be  per 
mitted  to  withdraw  except  in  flight  and  utter  demoralization.  It  is  in 
fact,  however,  to-day  relatively  stronger  than  our  own.  It  has  lost  less  ; 
it  has  taken  more  prisoners ;  more  guns ;  more  supplies  of  every  sort. 
Still  I  hope  we  shall  reduce  the  disparity  from  day  to  day,  and  soon  shift 
the  balance  and  complete  the  work.  Let  us  hope  in  Providence.  .  .  ." 

To  Elihu  Burritt. 

"  WASHINGTON,  October  6, 1862. 

" .  .  .  .  Among  my  most  cherished  recollections  are  those  connected 
with  the  organization  and  action  of  the  Liberty  party.  I  have  never 
changed  the  opinion  I  once  took  occasion  to  express  in  the  Senate,  that 
a  body  of  more  earnest,  patriotic,  and  intelligent  men  were  never  asso 
ciated  in  political  action.  Many  of  those  who  participated  in  its  work 
have  passed  from  earth.  I  remember  them  affectionately,  and  have  deeply 
regretted  that  they  could  not  live  to  witness  the  ascendency  of  the  prin 
ciples  for  which  they  labored  so  disinterestedly.  I  rejoice  in  numbering 
among  those  who  survive  many  of  my  most  valued  friends. 

"  Your  own  services  in  the  great  cause  of  freedom  and  humanity  have 
always  been  cordially  recognized  and  appreciated  by  me.  It  was  with 
real  pleasure,  therefore,  that  I  received  your  note  of  the  3d  instant ;  and  I 
have  read  attentively  the  paper  you  inclosed.  While  there  are  many 
things  in  your  plan,  and  especially  the  feature  of  a  North  American  Zoll- 
verein,  which  seem  to  me  to  deserve  attentive  consideration  with  a  view 
to  practical  results,  I  have  not  been  able  to  see  any  ground  for  thinking 
that  the  existing  struggle  can  be  terminated  by  any  arrangement  recogniz 
ing  a  Southern  Confederacy  formed  out  of  the  United  States. 

"  It  is  true  that,  prior  to  the  attack  upon  Fort  Sumter,  I  shared  a 
quite  general  opinion  that,  if  the  other  States  could  be  retained  peaceably 
in  the  Union,  it  would  be  better  to  allow  the  seven  States  which  had 
formed  the  so-called  Confederate  Government  to  try  the  experiment  of  a 
separate  existence,  rather  than  incur  the  evils  of  a  bloody  war  and  a  vast 
debt.  The  attack  on  Sumter  made  such  an  arrangement  impossible,  and 
left  nothing  practicable  except  the  assertion  of  the  rightful  supremacy 
of  the  national  Government  over  all  parts  of  the  Union.  The  work  of  re 
establishing  that  supremacy  has  been  unnecessarily  protracted.  It  may 
perhaps  be  not  unreasonably  thought  that  errors  in  counsel,  and  irresolu 
tion  and  ill-success  in  military  action,  are  ascribable  to  an  overruling 
Providence,  which  has  determined  that  this  war  shall  be  not  only  our 


CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  IN  KEBEL  STATES.  381 

punishment  for  having  so  long  shared  in  the  guilt  of  slavery,  but  the  oc 
casion  also  of  breaking  the  bonds  of  the  slave. 

"  The  proclamation  of  the  President  has  determined  that  if  the  rebel 
lion  continues,  slavery  shall  cease,  so  far  as  the  authority  of  the  United 
States  is  concerned,  on  the  1st  of  January  next.  This  great  act  of  justice 
having  been  thus  performed  may  we  not  hope  that  with  vigor  and  energy 
we  may  see  the  rebellion  suppressed  before  the  close  of  another  spring  ? 
I,  at  least,  think  the  hope  not  ill-founded.  I  am  confident  that  nothing  is 
needed  to  insure  the  result,  except  the  vigorous  use  of  the  necessary  means, 
which  we  have  in  abundance ;  and,  what  is  indispensable  to  all  success, 
the  favor  of  God." 

To  General  N.  B.  Buford,  in  the  Army. 

"WASHINGTON,  October  11, 1862. 

" ....  I  was  glad  to-day  to  receive  your  letter  of  the  1st  instant.  I 
have  long  been  of  opinion  that  a  much  more  comprehensive  policy,  both 
in  military  and  civil  administration,  was  necessary  to  the  speedy  and  thor 
ough  reestablishment  of  the  constitutional  authority  of  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment  throughout  the  country.  Your  view  of  the  necessity  of  a  civil 
government  in  rebel  States,  under  the  auspices  of  the  United  States,  I 
have  also  felt ;  and  I  have  endeavored  to  impress  it  upon  the  Administra 
tion  and  upon  Congress,  though  with  less  success  than  I  wished.  At  first, 
the  President  and  nearly  the  whole  cabinet  were  favorable  to  it ;  but 
the  strenuous  objections  of  one  or  two  made  the  President,  who  dislikes 
controversy,  abandon  it. 

"  In  Congress,  a  plan  for  a  civil  government  was  reported  from  the 
Judiciary  Committee  in  the  Senate,  but  no  action  was  taken  upon  it  in 
consequence  of  apprehensions  of  conservative  Senators  that  it  might  some 
how  affect  slavery.  The  plan  to  which  I  refer  proposed,  simply,  the  ap 
pointment  of  a  Governor  and  three  judges;  the  first  constituting  the  ex 
ecutive,  the  three  judges  the  judiciary,  and  all  together  constituting  the 
Legislature,  for  any  district  occupied  by  our  troops — the  district  to  be  ex 
tended  with  the  occupation  until  it  should  embrace  an  entire  State.  The 
advantages  of  this  plan  seem  to  me  to  be  obvious.  It  would  interfere  with 
no  local  administration,  beyond  insisting  on  loyalty ;  it  would  afford  a 
head,  in  place  of  the  State  organization,  acting  directly  on  the  people  in 
the  ordinary  form  of  legislative,  judicial,  and  executive  administration ; 
and  it  could  give  way,  without  any  great  disturbance  or  inconvenience, 
upon  the  reestablishment  of  the  State  government.  With  an  able  Govern 
or,  and  three  judicious  men  as  judges,  the  plan  could  have  been  put  into 
operation,  for  example,  in  the  portion  of  Mississippi  occupied  by  you,  and 
the  people  would  hardly  have  been  conscious  of  the  change  from  their 
regular  State  government,  unless  county  and  municipal  organizations  should 
persist  in  disloyalty,  and  the  loyal  men  should  be  too  few  to  replace  them 
by  new  elections. 


382  LIFE  OF  SALMON-  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  In  place  of  this,  we  have  an  unsystematic  system  of  military  govern 
ors,  who  cannot  possibly  act  in  any  other  capacity  than' executive,  without 
shocking  the  fixed  notions  of  our  people. 

"  Perhaps  we  shall  come  to  something  like  this,  but  we  move  exceed 
ing  slow.  All  great  bodies  do,  it  is  said ;  and  therefore  we  must  be  great. 

"As  to  slavery,  you  know  my  ideas.  It  was  my  most  ardent  wish  and 
hope  that  after  the  establishment  of  the  principle  that  slavery  could  not 
be  extended,  or  maintained,  under  Federal  jurisdiction  by  Federal  au 
thority,  it  might  be  left  within  the  States  to  the  absolute  disposition  of  the 
States  themselves.  When  the  insurrection  first  broke  out,  I  thought  that 
it  might  be  speedily  suppressed  by  the  active  use  of  the  necessary  means, 
and  that  without  affecting  the  institution  of  slavery  otherwise  than  morally. 
The  progress  of  the  war  has  been,  perhaps  providentially,  such  that  it  has 
become  impossible,- and  has  now,  in  my  judgment,  been  long  impossible, 
to  suppress  the  rebellion  without  suppressing  the  institution  which  gives 
it  life.  I  would  prefer  to  have  had  this  necessity  recognized  by  military 
authorities,  acting  through  military  orders  according  to  military  exigen 
cies.  I  was,  therefore,  in  favor  of  General  Hunter's  order,  and  of  support 
ing  General  Butler  in  the  exercise  of  a  similar  discretion.  Such  orders 
would  have  settled  the  question  without  noise,  and  probably  without 
much  excitement. 

"  As  the  President  did  not  concur  in  this  judgment,  I  was  willing,  and 
indeed  very  glad,  to  accept  the  proclamation  as  the  next  best  mode  of 
dealing  with  the  subject. 

"  I  do  hope  we  shall  now  have  more  energy  and  activity  in  the  prose 
cution  of  the  war.  Our  news  from  the  Army  of  the  Mississippi  is  very  en 
couraging  ;  and  as  it  appears  that  the  rebels  are  being  driven  out  of  Ken 
tucky,  I  hope  that  soon  the  national  lines  will  be  farther  advanced  south 
ward  than  ever;  that,  at  the  same  time,  vigorous  operations  on  the  coast 
will  reduce  every  fortification  on  the  coast,  from  Norfolk  round  to  Browns 
ville.  It  is  something  of  a  danger,  though  I  trust  but  temporary,  that 
Stuart's  cavalry  are  this  morning  in  possession  of  Chambersburg.  But  it 
is  disgraceful.  .  .  ." 

To  Joseph  Medill,  Esq.,  Chicago. 

"  WASHINGTON,  December  18, 1862. 

" ....  It  is  a  strange  thing  for  me  to  write  explanations  or  vindica 
tions  of  any  recommendations  of  mine.  I  prefer  they  shall  stand  or  fall 
upon  the  judgments  of  those  to  whom  they  are  presented.  But  I  regard 
the  enactment  of  a  law  for  the  organization  of  banking  associations  as  so 
indispensably  important,  in  our  present  circumstances,  that  I  depart  from 
my  usage. 

"  I  have  seen  the  Chicago  Tribune,  in  which,  with  great  personal  kind 
ness  and  consideration,  you  dissent  from  my  proposition.  Your  dissent,  as 
I  understand,  is  placed  mainly  on  the  ground  that  we  ought  to  get  rid  of 
banks  altogether,  and  come  to  gold  currency. 


THE  NATIONAL  CUKRENCY  SYSTEM.  383 

"  I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  these  objections.  My  time  does  not  per 
mit.  I  only  wish  to  say  that  I  have  looked  on  all  sides  of  the  subject  with 
all  the  care  I  could  use,  and  I  am  fully  satisfied  that  we  cannot  get  rid  of 
banks  and  their  circulating  notes.  Try  as  we  may,  they  will  be  sanctioned 
in  some  States  and  at  different  times  in  all  States.  What  I  seek  is  to  deal 
with  what  must  be  in  such  a  way  as  to  get  from  it  the  greatest  possible 
good. 

"  The  choice  is  between,  say,  fifteen  hundred  banks,  organized  under 
many  and  various  laws,  and  as  many  banking  associations  as  can  and  will 
furnish  the  required  security,  organized  under  one  and  the  same  law. 

"  My  conviction  is  clear  that  the  people  of  the  West  will  save  in  discounts, 
exchange,  losses  by  counterfeits,  and  all  the  variety  of  *  shaves,'  in  case  the 
plan  proposed  be  adopted,  nearly  one-half  as  much  as  the  interest  on  the 
national  debt  can  probably  amount  to. 

"  You  seem  to  think  that  the  plan  proposes  inconvertible  paper  money ; 
whereas  its  very  object  is  to  avoid  a  deluge  of  that  sort  of  stuff.  Not  only 
is  the  circulation  of  the  association  to  be  secured  by  the  bonds  deposited 
with  the  Treasurer,  but  it  is  to  be  payable  in  coin  as  soon  as  the  Govern 
ment  is  ready  to  pay  coin  for  its  own  issues,  which  must  be  at  the  earliest 
possible  day.  .  .  . 

"  The  example  of  Illinois,  or  any  other  State,  which  has  allowed  other 
bonds  than  its  own  and  those  of  the  United  States  to  be  pledged,  is  not 
analogous.  The  bonds  of  the  United  States,  pledged  for  a  national  circu 
lation,  are  like  New  York  bonds  pledged  for  a  New  York  circulation. 

"  My  wish  is  for  the  country.    I  know  the  imminence  of  its  peril." 


CHAPTEE   XXXVIII. 

LETTERS  AND  EXTRACTS   FROM  LETTERS  WRITTEN  IN  1863. 
To  Cliarles  A.  Heckscker,  Esq.,  New  York. 

"  WASHINGTON,  January  22, 1SG8. 

" .  .  .  .  ~T~  fear  greatly  that  Congress  will  not  find  time  or  have  the  incli- 
JL  nation  to  pass  an  increased  tax-bill.  The  report  of  the  Com 
missioner  of  Internal  Revenue  satisfies  me  that  the  income  from  that  source 
cannot  fall  short  of  $150,000,000  a  year,  while  the  revenues  from  cus 
toms  cannot  be  estimated  at  less  than  $60,000,000.  The  lowest  pos 
sible  point  is  $50,000,000,  and  the  highest  probable  point  is  $75,000,000. 
Our  income  from  taxation,  therefore,  in  various  forms,  will  range  from 
$200,000,000  to  $225,000,000.  Our  whole  debt  is  at  the  present  moment, 
in  round  numbers,  $770,000,000 ;  to  which  may  be  added,  for  floating 
debt,  in  all  forms,  $60,000,000.  My  impression  is  that  the  amount  will 
not  be  found  to  be  so  large,  but  I  have  no  means  of  forming  an  entirely 
accurate  judgment. 

"  I  have  no  reason  to  change  the  estimates  submitted  by  me  to  Con 
gress,  or  to  believe  that  our  aggregate  debt  on  the  1st  of  July,  1864,  can 
be  carried  beyond  $1,750,000,000.  With  a  good  national  free-banking 
law,  I  think  the  interest  on  this  aniount  can  be  kept  down  to  five  per  cent. ; 
it  ought  to  be  reduced  even  below  that.  Call  it  five  per  cent.,  and  the  in 
terest  will  be  $87,500,000.  Add  to  this  sum  for  ordinary  expenditures, 
$70,000,000 ;  or,  allowing  for  extravagance,  say  $80,000,000,  the  aggre 
gate  is  $167,500,000,  leaving  from  $32,500,000  to  $57,500,000  for  a  sinking 
fund.  Surely  with  a  pledge  of  the  whole  customs  for  interest  and  reduc 
tion  of  the  principal,  and  with  this  la*rge  taxation,  if  any  bonds  on  earth 
can  be  made  secure  by  taxation,  ours  are  already  made  secure. 

"  My  own  conviction  is,  that  the  greatest  detriment  to  the  public  cred 
it  now  arises  from  the  divorce  of  the  Government  from  the  ordinary  cur 
rency  of  the  country.  If  that  currency  were  brought  un&er  regulation 
of  the  Government  by  the  bill  which  I  propose,  and  so  made  the  medium 
in  which  all  duties,  taxes,  and  other  dues,  could  be  paid  in  ordinary  times, 
while  the  banking  associations  would  furnish  safe  depositories  of  public 


CONCERNING  FINANCIAL  MEASURES.  385 

moneys — made  safe,  if  you  please,  by  adequate  securities  as  under  the 
French  system — I  have  no  doubt  that  the  bonds  would  be  so  strengthened 
that  loans  would  be  comparatively  easy,  and  the  great  evils  of  an  exces 
sively  redundant  currency  would  be  averted. 

"  But,  as  in  relation  to  the  war  last  year,  I  urged  measures  which,  in 
my  judgment,  would  have  terminated  it  ere  this  time  at  less  than  two- 
thirds  the  cost  incurred,  my  counsels  were  substantially  disregarded  ;  so 
now  there  is  reason  to  fear  that  the  safe  ways  in  finance  are  only  to  be 
learned  by  the  hard  teachings  of  bitter  experience.  .  .  ." 

To  William  Pitt  Fessenden,  United  States  Senate. 

"  WASHINGTON,  January  27, 1863. 

"  .  ...  I  called  to  see  you  this  morning,  but  you  had  just  left  your  room. 

"  My  solicitude  in  respect  to  our  finances  is  very  great. 

"Last  session,  against  my  most  earnest  remonstrances,  Congress  insisted 
on  the  conversion  clause.  It  operated  as  I  had  represented  it  would.  It 
made  negotiations  impossible  except  below  par,  and  at  increasingly  dis 
advantageous  rates.  Had  I  resorted  to  such  negotiations  and  thus  nulli 
fied  the  conversion  clause,  what  reproaches  should  I  not  have  incurred  for 
the  Administration,  for  the  men  who  support  it,  and  for  myself ! 

"  In  my  first  report  (July,  1861),  I  suggested  a  tax  on  bank-notes  as 
well  as  other  internal  taxes,  but  at  that  session  no  internal  duties  at  all 
were  imposed.  We  all  hoped  that  the  increased  customs  duties  and  the 
direct  tax  might  suffice. 

"  In  my  second  report— just  before  the  suspension — I  proposed  a  na 
tional  banking  system  and  a  tax  on  circulation,  both  for  the  banks  organ 
ized  under  it  and  the  local  banks.  It  is  my  well-considered  judgment 
that,  had  these  views  been  adopted  at  the  last  session,  together  with  the 
measures  I  urged  in  respect  to  loans,  there  would  have  been  comparatively 
little  financial  embarrassment  at  this  time. 

"But  Congress  thought  otherwise.  The  system  of  conversion  was 
adopted,  and  the  Banking  Association  Bill  was  only  ordered  to  be  printed 
for  public  information  and  consideration. 

"  At  this  session  I  have  repeated  my  former  recommendations  ;  and  in 
addition  as  a  temporary  measure  I  sent  to  both  the  Financial  Committees 
the  bill  which  actually  passed  the  Senate. 

"  Instead  of  this  bill,  which  would  have  enabled  me  to  avert  the  in 
crease  of  United  States  notes,  to  some  extent  at  least,  Congress  passed  a 
joint  resolution  looking  only  to  the  acceleration  of  that  increase,  and  now 
the  House  has  adopted  a  measure  which  still  looks  in  the  same  direction. 

"  I  do  not  propose  to  argue  any  thing  in  this  letter.  Indeed,  the  rapid 
advance  of  gold  speaks  all  that  can  be  said.  But  I  do  wish  to  keep  in 
your  most,  kind  consideration  the  indispensable  importance  of  adequate 
measures  for  the  crisis. 

"  You  have  the  brain  of  a  statesman  and  the  heart  of  a  patriot.    Never 
was  greater  need  of  both." 
25 


\ 


386  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

To  William  P.  Mellen,  Cincinnati. 

"  WASHINGTON,  January  27,  1863. 

" .  .  .  .  The  newspapers  cannot  be  relied  upon  for  correct  information 
of  what  transpires  here.  Their  correspondents  gather  their  information 
from  street  talk  and  conversations  with  members  and,  occasionally,  with 
heads  or  employe's  of  departments,  and,  in  the  multitude  of  conflicting 
statements  and  opinions,  rarely  hit  the  precise  truth. 

"  The  bill  of  the  committee,  which  has  passed  the  House,  does  not  ex 
press  my  views,  though  in  some  respects  it  is  much  better  than  the  act 
of  last  session ;  and  so  much  was  conceded  to  me  by  the  committee,  that 
I  did  not  think  it  wise  to  oppose  its  passage  through  the  House,  though  I 
should  have  been  glad  to  have  had  it  amended  in  several  particulars : 

"  1.  I  desired  that  interest  on  all  temporary  loans  should  be  paid  in 
United  States  notes. 

"2.  I  preferred  that  the  Treasury  notes  bearing  interest  should  be 
made  a  legal  tender  for  their  face  value,  excluding  interest,  instead  of 
being  made  convertible  into  United  States  notes. 

"  3.  I  did  not  see  the  necessity  of  increasing  the  issue  of  United  States 
notes. 

"  4.  I  thought  the  tax  on  bank-note  circulation  should  be  a  uniform 
rate  of  two  per  cent,  per  annum,  payable  semi-annually,  instead  of  the 
graduated  scale  preferred  by  the  committee. 

"  5.  I  wished  that  the  section  authorizing  deposits  in  State  banks  and 
checks  upon  them,  that  is  to  say,  the  virtual  restoration  of  the  pet-bank 
system,  should  be  stricken  out  altogether. 

"  The  majority  of  the  committee  is  yet  averse  to  the  uniform  Currency 
and  Banking  Bill ;  but  I  still  hope  to  get  a  majority  in  its  favor;  but  it  is 
precisely  on  this  point  that  all  efforts  should  be  concentrated.  If  this  bill 
can  be  passed  into  law,  it  is  comparatively  unimportant  what  other  meas 
ures  prevail.  So  it  is  if  the  bill  does  not  become  a  law.  With  it,  success 
is  possible  and  probable.  Without  it  failure  is  probable  if  not  cer 
tain.  .  .  ." 

To  Horace  G-reeley,  New  York. 

"  WASHINGTON,  January  23,  1S63. 
" .  .  .  .  Why  don't  you — who  can  so  well  point  out  the  path  which 
others  ought  to  walk — do  your  part  toward  the  great  and  indispensable 
work  of  establishing  a  uniform  national  currency  ?  A  breaking  up  of  the 
cabinet  would  hardly,  I  fear,  in  these  last  days  of  the  session,  promote 
the  success  of  the  legislative  measures  without  which  the  President  can 
hardly  expect  to  carry  on  the  war  or  any  thing  else,  very  successfully,  in 
face  of  the  opposition  he  is  likely  to  encounter.  Let  us  get  the  measures 
necessary  to  the  success  of  any  Republican  Administration  adopted,  and 
then  let  the  cabinet  be  reconstituted  if  you  will.  For  one,  I  am  quite 
willing  to  be  reconstituted.  I  have  neither  love  nor  hate  for  the  position 
I  occupy,  and  have  two  great  regrets  connected  with  it :  one,  that  I  ever 


THE  CURRENCY— SLAVERY. 

took  it ;  the  other,  that,  having  resigned  it,  I  yielded  to  the  counsels  of 
those  who  said  I  must  resume  it. 

"  But  this  is  apart  from  the  great  question — which  is  not  second  to  any 
connected  with  the  war  itself  at  this  time.  What  financial  measure  can 
take  us  back  to  the  firm  ground  from  which  the  legislation  of  last  session 
freed  us  ?  ...  The  main  point  is  the  banking  bill.  A  circulation  issued 
directly  by  the  Government  cannot  be  made  a  good  currency.  The  diffi 
culty  is  partly  in  the  nature  of  the  thing  and  partly  in  the  nature  of  men. 
The  total  difficulty  is  unsurmountable,  and  so  says  all  experience. 

"  The  only  way  which  has  had  trial  enough  to  warrant  reasonable  ex 
pectations  of  success  is  through  banking  institutions.  Local  banks  were 
tried  in  the  War  of  1812,  and  failed  disastrously,  and  they  will  fail  just  as 
disastrously  now.  A  Bank  of  the  United  States  has  been  twice  tried,  and 
nobody  is  bold  enough  to  propose  a  third  trial.  There  seems  to  remain 
only  a  national  free-banking  system.  A  State  free-banking  system  has 
been  tried  in  New  York  for  three  millions  of  people,  with  the  best  results 
on  State  credit  and  individual  well-being.  What  is  so  good  for  three 
millions  of  people  must  be  good  for  thirty  millions  or  thirty-three  mill 
ions.  .  .  ." 

To  George  Opdylce,  George  Griswold,  and  others,  New  York. 

"WASHINGTON,  April  8, 1863. 

" .  .  .  .  Imperative  demands  on  my  time  compel  me  to  deny  myself 
the  gratification  of  attending  the  meeting  to  which  you  have  invited  me. 

"  You  will  meet  to  send  words  of  cheer  to  our  brave  soldiers  in  the 
field ;  to  declare  the  inviolability  of  the  national  territory  and  the  suprem 
acy  of  the  national  Constitution  and  laws ;  and  to  strengthen  the  hands 
and  nerve  the  heart  of  the  President  for  the  great  work  to  which  God  and 
the  people  have  called  him.  For  what  nobler  purposes  can  American 
citizens  now  assemble  ? 

"It  is  my  fixed  faith  that  God  does  not  mean  that  this  American 
Republic  shall  perish.  We  are  tried  as  by  fire,  but  our  country  will  live. 
Notwithstanding  all  the  violence  of  rebels,  and  their  sympathizers  on  this 
or  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  our  country  will  live.  And  while  our 
country  lives,  slavery,  the  chief  source  and  cause  and  agent  of  all  our 
ills,  will  die.  The  friends  of  the  Union  in  the  South,  before  rebellion, 
predicted  the  destruction  of  slavery  as  a  consequence  of  secession,  if  that 
madness  should  prevail.  Nothing,  in  my  judgment,  is  more  certain  than 
the  fulfillment  of  these  predictions.  Safe  in  the  States,  before  rebellion, 
from  all  Federal  interference,  slavery  has  come  out  from  its  shelter  under 
the  State  constitutions  and  laws,  to  assail  the  national  life.  It  will  surely 
die,  pierced  by  its  own  fangs  and  stings. 

"  What  matter  now  how  it  dies,  whether  as  a  consequence  or  as  an  ob 
ject  of  the  war?  To  me  it  seems  that  Providence  indicates  clearly  enough 
how  the  end  of  slavery  must  come.  It  comes  in  rebel  States  by  military 


388  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

order,  decree  or  proclamation,  not  to  be  disregarded  or  set  aside  in  any 
event  as  a  nullity,  but  maintained  and  executed  with  perfect  good  faith  to 
all  the  enfranchised  ;  and  it  will  come  in  loyal  slave  States  by  the  uncon 
strained  action  of  the  people  and  their  Legislatures,  aided  freely  and  gen 
erously  by  their  brethren  of  the  free  States.  I  may  be  mistaken  in  this, 
but  if  I  am,  another  and  a  better  way  may  be  revealed. 

"  Meantime,  it  seems  to  me  very  necessary  to  say  distinctly  what  many 
shrink  from  saying.  The  American  blacks  must  be  called  into  this  con 
flict,  not  as  cattle,  not  even  as  contrabands,  but  as  men.  In  the  free  States 
and  in  the  rebel  States,  by  the  proclamation  they  are  free  men.  The  Attor 
ney-General,  in  an  opinion  which  defies  refutation,  has  pronounced  these 
freemen  citizens  of  the  United  States.  Let,  then,  the  example  of  Andrew 
Jackson,  who  did  not  hesitate  to  oppose  colored  regiments  to  British  inva 
sion,  be  fearlessly  followed.  Let  these  blacks — acclimated,  familiar  with 
the  country,  capable  of  great  endurance — receive  suitable  military  organi 
zation  and  do  their  part.  We  need  their  good-will,  and  must  make  them 
our  friends  by  showing  ourselves  to  be  their  friends.  We  must  have  them 
for  guides,  for  scouts,  for  all  military  service  in  camps  or  field,  for  which 
they  are  qualified.  Thus  employed,  from  a  burden  they  will  become  a 
support,  and  the  hazards,  privations,  and  labors  of  white  soldiers  will  be 
proportionally  diminished. 

"  Above  all,  gentlemen,  let  no  doubt  rest  on  our  resolution  to  sustain 
with  all  our  hearts  and  with  all  our  means  the  soldiers  now  in  arms  for 
the  republic.  Let  their  ranks  be  filled  up ;  let  their  supplies  be  sufficient 
and  regular ;  let  their  pay  be  sure.  Let  nothing  be  wanting  to  them  which 
can  insure  activity  and  efficiency.  Let  each  brave  officer  and  man  realize 
that  his  country's  love  attends  him,  and,  inspired  by  this  thought,  let 
him  dare  and  do  all  that  is  possible  to  be  dared  and  done. 

"  So,  with  the  blessing  of  God,  we  will  make  a  glorious  future  sure. 
I  see  it  rising  before  me,  how  beautiful  and  how  grand !  There  is  no  time  to 
speak  of  it  now ;  but  from  all  quarters  of  the  land  comes  the  voice  of  the 
sovereign  people  rebuking  faction,  denouncing  treason,  and  proclaiming 
the  indivisible  unity  of  the  republic,  and  in  this  Heaven-inspired  union  of 
the  people  for  the  sake  of  the  Union  is  the  sure  promise  of  that  splendid 
hereafter." 

To  the  President. 

"  PHILADELPHIA,  April  22, 1S68. 

".  .  .  .  My  purpose  in  visiting  Philadelphia  and  New  York  at  this 
time  is  to  ascertain  if  a  loan,  say  of  fifty  millions,  to  pay  off  all  arrears, 
cannot  now  be  obtained.  The  only  difficulty  I  find  in  the  way  springs 
from  the  painful  uncertainty  generally  prevalent  as  to  the  future  of  the 
war.  Notwithstanding  this,  however,  I  hope  to  succeed  ;  and  I  am  greatly 
cheered  by  the  resolved  determination  which  appears  to  animate  all  our 
friends.  This  is  a  sentiment  which  can  be  easily  turned  into  triumphant 
gladness  by  the  achievement  of  some  important  successes,  and  above  all 


CAUSES  OF  FINANCIAL  SUCCESS.  389 

by  the  development  of  some  settled  and  promising  plan  for  the  successful 
termination  of  the  contest.  I  have,  since  I  came  here,  heard  a  good  deal 
of  the  facility  of  communication  with  the  rebels  by  their  friends  in  loyal 
States.  A  lady  stated  to  me  the  other  day — Sunday— that  she  wrote  about 
the  last  of  March  to  some  friends  in  South  Carolina,  announcing  the  death 
of  a  relative,  and  that  she  had  just  received  a  reply.  The  time  for  going 
and  returning  was  only  a  little  more  than  three  weeks.  A  regular  mail 
goes  to  Nassau  under  our  postal  arrangements  with  Great  Britain,  and 
letters  to  the  interior  of  the  Confederacy  are  then  forwarded  by  the 
blockade-runners.  A  large  portion  of  these  mails  from  Nassau  get  safely 
through.  In  fact,  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  an  arrangement  by  which 
nearly  all  might  be  safely  landed  at  unfrequented  spots.  I  do  not  know 
that  there  is  any  remedy  for  this,  but  if  possible  one  should  be  found.  ..." 

To  Benjamin  F.  Flanders,  New  Orleans. 

"  WASHINGTON,  May  23, 1863. 

" .  .  .  .  What  the  country  may  think  proper  to  do  with  me  is  of  far 
less  consequence  than  what  it  is  my  duty  to  do  for  my  country.  It  does  V. 
not  so  much  matter  that  my  services  be  recognized  as  that  they  be  faith 
fully  performed.  Of  course,  I  have  very  little  inclination  for  any  political 
arrangement  which  has  reference  to  my  personal  future,  but  prefer  to 
leave  that  to  the  disposition  of  events  and  the  will  of  the  people,  being 
quite  as  willing  to  resume  the  post  of  private  citizen  as  to  continue  in 
my  present,  or  be  transferred  to  any  other  public  position.  .  .  ." 

To  the  Right  Bev.  Carlton  Chase,  Claremont,  JV.  H. 

"WASHINGTON,  May  25,  1863. 

" .  .  .  .  Accept  my  thanks  for  your  very  kind  letter. 

"  When  I  entered  upon  the  duties  of  this  Department  it  was  with 
great  self-distrust  and  with  great  reluctance  ;  and  only  in  deference  to  the 
judgments  of  many  persons  of  great  worth  and  intelligence  as  well  as  of 
high  position,  who  insisted  that  I  was  not  at  liberty  to  decline  the  post 
assigned  me  by  the  President. 

"  Under  an  almost  oppressive  sense  of  responsibility,  and  not  unmind-  ' 
fill,  I  trust,  that  the  builder  labors  in  vain  except  the  Lord  build,  I  as 
sumed,  therefore,  the  direction  of  the  financial  concerns  of  this  great  na 
tion. 

"  In  all  that  I  have  done  I  can  say  with,  I  think,  a  good  conscience, 
that  I  have  sought  only  to  know  what  was  right,  and  to  do  it,  without 
fear,  and  yet  without  vain  confidence. 

u  That  success  has  thus  far  attended  my  labors  is  due  partly  to  the 
constant  support  of  many  strong  and  good  men,  who  gave  me  their  confi 
dence  early  and  have  not  yet  withdrawn  it ;  partly  to  the  zealous  coop 
eration  of  able  and  faithful  officers  and  agents ;  partly  to  the  ardent  pa 
triotism  of  the  noblest  people  that  ever  dwelt  in  any  land;  and  altogether 


390  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

to  the  mercy  and  goodness  of  God  who  planted  this  nation,  and  does  not 
mean,  as  I  verily  believe,  to  suffer  that  which  he  has  planted  to  be  plucked 
up  and  destroyed. 

"  I  am  glad  of  your  approval.  It  cheers  and  invigorates  me.  It  is  my 
hope  that  you  will  not  hereafter  find  cause  to  reverse  your  judgment. 
That  you  may  not,  will  be  my  continual  endeavor." 

To  Jay  Cooke,  Esq.,  Philadelphia. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  2,  1868. 

" .  .  .  .  You  informed  me  two  or  three  weeks  ago  that  you  had  pur 
chased  300  shares  of  Philadelphia  and  Erie  Eailroad  stock  for  me.  At 
that  time  I  was  expecting  means  of  payment  from  the  sale  of  a  farm  in 
Ohio,  and  would  have  been  glad  to  hold  the  stock  for  income.  The  sale, 
however,  has  not  yet  been  effected,  and  I  have,  therefore,  not  been  able  to 
make  payment. 

"  This  morning  I  have  yours  of  yesterday,  notifying  me  that  you  have 
sold  the  stock  at  an  advance  which  gives  a  profit  of  $4,200  on  the  trans 
action,  and  you  inclose  me  a  check  for  that  amount. 

"  As  I  had  not  paid  for  the  stock,  and  did  not  contemplate  purchasing 
with  any  view  to  resale,  I  cannot  regard  the  profit  as  mine,  and  therefore 
return  the  check  for  $4,200.  It  is  herewith  inclosed. 

u  I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  willingness  to  regard  the  money 
paid  for  the  stock  as  a  temporary  loan  from  you  to  me.  But  I  cannot  ac 
cept  the  favor. 

"  When  Congress,  at  the  last  session,  saw  fit  to  clothe  me  with  very 
large  powers  over  currency  and  financial  movements,  I  determined  to  avoid 
every  act  which  could  give  occasion  to  any  suspicion  that  I  would  use  the 
powers  conferred  on  me  to  affect  markets  unnecessarily,  or  at  all,  with 
reference  to  the  private  advantage  of  anybody.  To  carry  out  this  deter 
mination  faithfully,  I  must  decline  to  receive  any  advantage  from  pur 
chases  or  sales  made  with  views  to  profits  expected  from  the  rise  or  fall  of 
market  prices. 

"  For  these  reasons  I  must  decline  to  receive  the  check.  For,  in  order 
to  be  able  to  render  the  most  efficient  service  to  our  country,  it  is  essential 
for  me  to  le  right  as  well  as  to  seem  right,  and  to  seem  right  as  well  as  to 
le  right." 

To  Henry  W.  Hoffman,  Esq.,  Baltimore. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  15,  1863. 

" .  .  .  .  When  you  were  here  a  few  days  ago,  conversing  with  me  on 
the  general  subject  of  the  course  likely  to  be  adopted  by  the  Union  men 
of  Maryland,  I  ventured  to  express  some  ideas  which  you  requested  me 
to  put  in  writing.  I  do  so  with  pleasure ;  I  wish,  however,  to  have  it 
distinctly  understood  that  I  disclaim  every  pretense  of  right  to  interfere 
at  all  with  the  action  of  our  Union  friends ;  and  I  shall  not  be  disap- 


BURNSIDE'S  ORDER  THIRTY-EIGHT.  391 

pointed  if,  in  the  exercise  of  their  better  judgment,  they  pay  very  little 
heed  to  any  opinions  of  mine.  My  ideas  are,  then,  briefly  these : 

"1.  That  the  broader  the  platform,  provided  it  contains  the  essentials 
of  political  faith  and  action,  the  better. 

"  2.  That  in  all  matters  of  State  policy  the  platform  should  be  adapt 
ed,  as  closely  as  possible,  to  the  true  interests  of  the  masses  of  the  people. 

"3.  That  whatever  platform  may  be  adopted  should  contain  a  dis 
tinct  declaration  in  favor  of  emancipation  as  the  true  policy  of  the  State  ; 
leaving,  if  thought  expedient,  the  question  of  immediate  or  gradual,  com 
pensated  or  uncompensated,  for  future  consideration. 

"4.  The  platform  should  also  contain  a  declaration  that  the  Union 
men  of  Maryland  are  unconditionally  such,  and  in  favor  of  the  most  vigor 
ous  measures  for  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion  and  the  restoration  of 
the  national  authority  throughout  the  republic. 

"  5.  The  platform  should  declare  also,  in  the  most  explicit  terms,  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  in  times  of  rebellion  as  supporting  the  national 
Government  without  supporting  the  administration  of  the  national  Govern 
ment  ;  that  the  administration  of  the  national  Government  is  confided  by 
the  Constitution,  to  the  President,  assisted  in  their  several  spheres  of  duty 
by  the  administrative  departments  ;  and  that,  therefore,  while  the  freedom 
of  speech  and  the  press  should  not  be  arbitrarily  infringed,  the  measures 
of  the  President  and  the  general  policy  of  his  administration  should, 
under  the  present  trying  circumstances  of  the  country,  be  sustained  by  all 
true  patriots  in  a  spirit  of  generous  confidence,  and  not  thwarted  by  cap 
tious  criticism  or  factious  opposition. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  upon  a  platform  embodying  these  points,  all  true 
friends  of  the  Union  and  of  the  national  Government  may  stand  together 
in  cordial  cooperation." 

To  Colonel  E.  C.  Parsons,  Cleveland,  Ohio. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  15,  18C8. 

".  .  .  .  If  Vallandigham  violated  any  law,  he  should  have  been  ar 
rested,  tried,  and  convicted.  To  arrest,  try,  and  attempt  to  convict  him 
now,  seems  very  much  like  a  confession  that  the  Burnside  court  had  no 
jurisdiction;  if  the  charge  be  based  upon  the  acts  which  were  proved 
before  that  court. 

"  I  have  never  myself  been  much  afraid  of  words ;  and  when  men 
(Vallandigham  among  them)  have  sought  to  cripple  the  financial  adminis 
tration  by  misrepresentation  and  vilification,  I  have  preferred  to  reply  by 
augmented  efforts  in  the  service  of  the  country  rather  than  by  arrest  and 
imprisonment. 

"  You  will  infer  from  this,  and  not  unnaturally,  that  I  am  no  great 
admirer  of  Order  No.  38. 

"  Not  that  I  am  averse  to  arrests  for  sufficient  cause  and  in  the  proper 
time  and  place.  It  would  have  been  very  well  to  arrest  Lee  and  Johnson, 


392  LIFE  OF  SALMOX  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

and  others,  instead  of  allowing  them  to  resign  to  enter  the  rebel  service. 
It  was  very  well  to  arrest  the  incipient  traitors  in  Maryland,  who  were 
plotting  the  consummation  of  treason  by  open  rebellion.  But  I  think  the 
exercise  of  such  power  ought  to  be  reserved  for  grave  and  clear  occasions. 
"  But  what  is  the  use  of  writing  this  ?  All  I  can  say  will  change  noth 
ing.  .  .  ." 

To  Eon.  William  H.  Seward,  Secretary  of  State. 

"WASHINGTON,  July  25,  1868. 

"  ....  I  return  Mr.  B.'s  letter.  I  am  against  such  a  proclamation  as 
he  proposes.  While  all  wise  men  would  approve  of  lenity  to  rebellious 
citizens  who  return  to  duty,  all  just  men  would  condemn  the  reenslave- 
ment  of  freedmen,  in  violation  of  the  faith  plighted  by  the  President  on 
the  1st  day  of  January  last." 

To  John  Weiss,  of  Boston. 

"  WASHINGTON,  August  21, 1863. 

" .  .  .  .  Every  thing  looks  well  for  us  now  except  that  the  war  moves 
too  slow  and  costs  too  much.  All  eyes  are  now  turned  toward  Charleston, 
where  we  look  for  one  of  the  severest,  if  not  the  severest  contest  known 
to  history.  Of  course  we  hope  for  the  best  results ;  and,  unless  present 
indications  prove  deceitful,  the  overthrow  of  the  military  power  of  the 
rebellion  cannot  be  very  far  distant.  Then  will  come — and  indeed  they 
are  already  in  sight — the  dangers  of  reconstruction.  We  shall  need  all 
the  courage,  constancy,  and  wisdom  in  council  then,  that  have  ever  been 
needed  in  the  field,  to  prevent  the  success  of  slavery  upon  the  transferred 
field  of  battle.  However,  in  this,  too,  I  am  hopeful  and  confident ;  and 
believe  that  we  shall  come  out  of  the  contest  a  democracy  indeed,  and 
thus  the  strongest  nation  in  the  world." 

To  E.  F.  Beales,  Esq. 

"  WASHINGTON,  September  5, 1863. 

" .  .  .  .  Yours  of  the  5th  of  August  has  just  reached  me.  I  appre 
ciate,  as  you  do,  the  importance  of  the  acquisitions  you  suggest.  I  fear 
that  the  Juarez  Government  is  now  too  entirely  broken  to  warrant  negotia 
tions  with  it,  but  I  will  confer  with  the  President  and  the  Secretary  of 
State  on  the  subject. 

"  What  a  pity  it  is  that  we  neglected  our  opportunities  when  the  States 
of  Central  America  were  so  ready  to  identify  their  fortunes  with  those  of 
the  American  Union !  What  a  pity  it  is,  also,  that  w^hen  General  Scott 
took  Mexico,  he  did  not  remain  there  and  establish  a  protectorate !  The 
timid  counsels  of  Whig  leaders  and  the  fears  of  the  slaveholding  oligarchy 
suppressed  a  policy  which  would  have  prevented  all  our  present  troubles, 
so  far  as  French  domination  in  Mexico  is  concerned." 


MILITARY  ADMINISTRATION.  393 

To  Andrew  Johnson,  Military  Governor  of  Tennessee. 

"WASHINGTON,  September  12, 1868. 

" .  .  .  .  Let  me  congratulate  you  that  rebellion  is  driven  from  East 
Tennessee,  your  home. 

"  The  President  read  me  yesterday  the  letter  he  addressed  to  you,  touch 
ing  reorganization.  It  is  a  noble  letter,  and  I  hope  all  its  aims  will  find  a 
cordial  response  in  you. 

"  God  offers  men  opportunities :  those  who  wisely  use  them  are  great. 
To  you  is  now  offered  an  opportunity  to  establish  the  renovated  institu 
tions  of  Tennessee,  on  the  basis  of  free  labor.  God  grant  that  you  may 
take  it  boldly.  Prompt  courage  in  the  matter  is  indeed  the  highest  wis 
dom.  Difficulties  vanish  before  stout  will. 

"  A  few  months,  a  very  few  months,  will  decide  the  position  of  Tennes 
see.  Let  her  not  act  so  as  to  leave  the  festering  sore  to  break  out  anew." 

To  Murat  Halstead,  Cincinnati. 

"  WASHINGTON,  September  21, 1863. 

".  ...  I  am  not  responsible  for  the  management  of  the  war,  and        J 
have  no  voice  in  it,  except  that  I  am  not  forbidden  to  make  suggestions, 
and  do  so  now  and  then,  when  I  cannot  help  it./ 

"  You  are  wrong  in  blaming  Stanton  as  you  do.  You  ought  to  allow 
for  the  great  difficulties  of  his  position,  and  remember  that  it  is  much  easier 
to  criticise  than  to  act  so  as  to  avoid  even  just  criticism.  Nor  should  you 
forget  that  a  war  managed  by  a  President,  a  commanding-general,  and  a 
Secretary,  cannot,  especially  where  the  great  differences  of  temperament, 
wishes,  and  intellectual  characteristics,  are  taken  into  the  account,  reason 
ably  be  expected  to  be  conducted  in  the  best  possible  manner.  /This  con 
dition  can  only  be  remedied  by  the  President  himself.  Don't  be  too  impa 
tient." 

To  Rev.  Joshua  Leavitt,  New  York. 

"  WASHINGTON,  October  7, 1863. 

".  .  .  .  Receive  my  warm  thanks  for  your  kind,  generous,  warm 
hearted,  old-time  letter. 

"  And  do  not  mistake  me.  If  I  know  my  own  heart,  a  judicial  would 
be  more  agreeable  to  my  personal  feelings  than  any  political  position.  So 
I  have  felt  for  years,  but  Providence  has  kept  me  hitherto  in  political  posi 
tions,  and  I  now  think  I  have  done  more  good  in  them  than  I  could  have 
effected  on  the  bench.  And  so  I  think  also  concerning  the  future.  Per 
haps  I  am  over-confident ;  but  I  really  feel  as  if,  with  God's  blessing,  I 
could  administer  the  Government  of  this  country  so  as  to  secure  and  imper- 
dibilize  (there's  a  new  word  for  you)  our  institutions :  and  create  a  party, 
fundamentally  and  thoroughly  democratic,  which  would  guarantee  a  suc 
cession  of  successful  administrations.  I  may  be  over-confident,  I  say;  and 
I  shall  take  it  as  a  sign -that  I  am,  if  the  people  do  not  call  for  me,  and 
shall  be  content. 


394  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  God  does  not  need  any  of  us,  and  I  know  very  well  that  his  world 
and  work  will  go  on  all  the  same  whether  I  live  or  die,  just  as  he  pleases 
to  order.  He  is  working  now,  and  oh,  how  sublimely  1  I  tremble  when 
I  think  how  little  people  or  administration  yet  realize  the  dread  signifi 
cance  of  passing  events.  In  the  midst  of  such  great  things  I  dare  not  ask 
any  thing  except  to  work  in  my  place,  whatever  that  place  may  be.  I 
assert  no  claim  ;  I  recognize  only  obligation.  Neither  friends  nor  country 
owe  me  any  thing :  I  owe  to  them  all  that  I  can  do  for  both.  And  there 
I  leave  the  matter.  I  know  that  many  good  and  true  men  desire  that 
my  services  may  be  required  in  the  highest  sphere  of  administration,  and 
perhaps  there  is  enough  of  popular  confidence  in  me  to  warrant  their  be 
lief  that  their  desires  might  be  realized  without  extraordinary  exertions. 
But  I  certainly  shall  not  complain  if  those  exertions  are  not  put  forth :  I 
shall  have  no  right  to  complain ;  no  right,  and  I  hope  less  inclination.  .  .  ." 

To  Horace  Greeley. 

"  WASHINGTON,  October  9, 1S63. 

" ....  It  was  my  duty  to  reply  promptly  to  your  last  letters.  My 
only  plea  in  mitigation  of  censure  is  the  constant  pressure  of  perplexing 
duties,  which,  as  Mr.  Wirt  used  to  say,  '  put  me  out  of  time  for  decent 
correspondence.'  I  am  still  out  of  time,  but  I  must  not  longer  omit  this 
duty. 

"  Be  assured  that  I  appreciate  fully  the  patriotic  spirit  in  which  your 
letter  was  written.  No  man  has  a  right  to  ask  a  moment's  consideration 
when  public  interests  require  that  it  should  be  withheld  ;  and  I  think  I 
can  truly  say  that  I  have  never  hesitated  to  give  way  to  others,  and  even 
to  put  others  forward  when  I  might  have  taken  myself  the  place  of  promi 
nence,  when  the  good  of  the  cause  of  freedom  and  just  government  seemed 
to  require  it.  I  hope  I  love  our  country,  and  the  cause  of  human  progress, 
so  intimately  Connected  with  the  fate  of  our  country,  too  well  to  allow  any 
personal  wishes  or  aspirations — from  which  I  do  not  claim  to  be  more  free 
than  other  men — to  interfere  with  my  duty  to  her  or  it. 

"  I  am  proud  of  your  approval  and  your  preference.  It  is  a  great  re 
ward  for  the  little  I  have  done  to  have  it.  No  man  has  so  powerfully  pro 
moted  the  increase  of  just  sentiments  concerning  political  rights  and  duties 
as  you  have  done,  through  speech  and  press.  Postage  reform,  the  home 
stead,  liberality  toward  immigrants,  freedom  of  the  Territories,  constitu 
tional  emancipation,  and  all  kindred  movements,  have  found  in  you  a  con 
stant  advocate,  animated  by  genuine  principle,  and  therefore  steadfast  amid 
the  changing  currents  of  expediency.  The  immense  audiences  which  have 
heard  your  voice  through  the  Tribunf  have  been  constantly  inspired  by 
generous  and  progressive  sentiments. '  Because  of  this,  I  greatly  value  your 
approval  and  that  confidence  which  induces  you  to  express  a  preference 
for  me  as  the  next  Union  candidate  for  the  chief  magistracy.  Should  cir 
cumstances  justify  your  final  action  in  accordance  with  this  preference,  and 


THE  FRENCH  DECIMAL  SYSTEM.  395 

should  it  be  my  lot  (which  does  not  now  seem  probable  enough  to  affect 
me  much)  to  be  called  to  that  responsible  position,  I  shall  take  to  it  what 
ever  capacity  God  has  given  me,  and  just  the  same  spirit  and  industry 
which  I  have  brought  to  other  public  duties.  Should  the  choice  fall  on 
another,  I  shall  retire  to  private  life  equally  content  to  devote  myself  to  its 
less  conspicuous  but  not  less  healthful  duties.^  / 

"  Your  suggestions  in  a  preceding  letter  were  promptly  attended  to. 
Indeed,  I  had  before  repeatedly  urged  on  the  President  and  Mr.  Stanton 
substantially  the  same  views ;  and  you  will  have  observed  a  gradual  prog 
ress  toward  their  complete  adoption.  Mr.  Stanton  is  thoroughly  in  ear 
nest  ;  Mr.  Lincoln,  with  sentiments  which  divide  him  between  the  border- 
State  and  the  progressive  policy,  advances  slowly  but  advances  steadily. 
On  the  whole,  when  we  think  of  the  short  time  and  immense  distance  in 
respect  of  personal  freedom,  between  the  1st  of  March,  1861,  and  the  1st  of 
October,  1863,  we  cannot  be  dissatisfied  with  results.  .  .  ." 

To  It.  B.  Warden,  of  Ohio. 

"  WASHINGTON,  October  23, 1863. 

" .  .  .  .  Yours  of  the  20th  is  received,  and  touches  me  deeply.  The 
loss  of  your  noble  son  moves  my  profoundest  sympathies ;  and  it  is  fit 
that  just  such  a  monument  as  your  book  will  make  for  him,  should  be 
constructed  by  your  hand.  Is  it  the  will  of  God  that  the  precious  blood 
poured  out  in  this  terrible  struggle  shall  nourish  the  vine  he  planted  in 
America  to  a  fresher  and  nobler  growth  ?  I  reverently  hope  so.  The  effects 
of  the  fiery  trial  to  your  mind  and  many  others  of  like  reach  and  culture 
confirm  the  hope.  It  is  a  real  gratification  to  be  assured  that  any  words  of 
mine  contributed  to  your  present  convictions. 

"  I  never  was  an  abolitionist  of  that  school  which  taught  that  there 
could  never  be  a  human  duty  superior  to  that  of  the  instant  and  uncondi 
tional  abolition  of  slavery.  He  who  sees  the  tower  in  the  quarry  and  the 
oak  in  the  acorn,  requires  no  imposed  task  from  his  creatures.  But,  for 
more  than  half  my  life,  I  have  been  an  abolitionist  of  that  other  school 
which  believed  slaveholding  wrong,  and  that  all  responsible  for  the  wrong 
should  do  what  was  possible  for  them,  in  their  respective  spheres,  for  its 
redress." 

To  His  Excellency,  M.  Mercier,  Minister  of  France. 

"WASHINGTON,  December  27, 18C3. 

"  ....  In  compliance  with  my  promise  of  yesterday  I  send  you  copies 
of  my  last  two  reports  to  Congress,  in  each  of  which  I  invite  the  attention 
of  our  national  Legislature  to  the  commercial  importance  of  an  interna 
tional  decimal  coinage. 

"  It  is  among  the  glories  of  France  that  her  science  and  legislation  first 
embodied  in  national  sanctions  the  great  idea  of  decimal  weights,  meas 
ures,  and  coins,  expressed  according  to  uniform  rules.  She  has  now  the 


396  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

satisfaction  of  seeing  other  nations  following  her  wise  example,  and  con 
tributing  to  the  extension,  for  the  benefit  of  mankind,  of  the  system  origi 
nated  by  her  wisdom  and  courage — for  courage  as  well  as  wisdom  was 
required  for  the  reform. 

"In  my  report  of  1862, 1  suggested  the  expediency  of  conforming  the 
American  half-eagle  to  the  British  sovereign.  More  reflection  has  inclined 
me  to  the  opinion  that  the  desired  uniformity  of  coinage  may  be  better 
obtained  by  equalizing  the  American  gold  dollar  with  the  five-franc  piece 
of  France. 

"  In  our  conversation  yesterday,  you  were  kind  enough  to  say  that,  dur 
ing  your  proposed  visit  to  France,  you  would  give  some  thought  to  this 
interesting  subject. 

"  All  friends  of  the  progress  of  nations  will  be  grateful  if  through  the 
action  of  the  Imperial  Government  and  that  of  the  United  States,  some 
thing  may  be  done,  effectually,  toward  giving  to  the  commerce  of  the  world 
common  measures  and  expressions  of  value."  l 

To  Major-  General  Q.  A.  Gillmore,  near  Charleston. 

"  WASHINGTON,  December  29, 1863. 

".  .  .  .  Ever  since  our  disasters  before  Richmond,  in  1862,  it  has 
seemed  to  me  that  instead  of  fighting  our  way  southward  through  Virginia, 
our  immediate  efforts  in  the  interior  should  be  confined  to  the  repossession 
of  East  Tennessee  and  of  the  Mississippi  River,  and  that  all  other  opera 
tions  should  be  conducted  from  the  coast,  supplied  by  sea  transportation, 
and  directed  to  the  reoccupation  and  reorganization  on  the  free-labor  and 
free-suffrage  basis  of  State  after  State,  from  the  Gulf  northward  as  rapidly 
as  possible.  With  East  Tennessee  and  the  Mississippi  in  our  possession,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  powerful  aid  could  be  contributed  to  these  operations, 
and  that  they  could  not  fail  to  be  successful. 

"  It  is  of  great  importance  to  press  the  war  to  the  earliest  possible  ter 
mination  ;  and  the  ree'stablishment  of  loyal  State  governments  under  free 
Sta-te  constitutions,  will  do  much  to  afford  rallying-points  for  all  the  loyalty 
of  the  South  of  whatever  physical  complexion,  and  to  discourage  exceed 
ingly  the  hope  of  restoring  the  rebel  sway.  It  will  mark  the  two  civiliza 
tions — or  rather  the  civilization  of  freedom  and  the  barbarism  of  slavery — 
by  distinctly  recognizable  limits.  When  the  former  has  been  once  fairly 
established,  I  have  no  fear  of  the  latter. 

"  Besides  my  desire  for  the  secure  and  permanent  reestablishment  of 
Union  at  the  earliest  possible  time,  I  feel  a  special  anxiety  for  prompt  and 

1  In  a  letter  of  even  date  with  this  to  M.  Mercier,  Mr.  Chase  in  a  note  to  his  old 
friend  Colonel  John  F.  Morse,  then  at  New  Orleans,  said  :  "  I  do  not  wonder  at  your 
surprise  in  finding  yourself  at  an  antislavery  meeting  in  New  Orleans.  Who  would 
have  predicted  the  possibility  of  such  a  thing  when  you  introduced  into  the  Ohio 
Legislature  the  bill  I  prepared  to  repeal  odious  discriminations  against  black  people 
fourteen  years  ago  ?  " 


FINANCIAL  DANGERS.  397 

efficient  action  arising  from  my  responsibilities  as  head  of  the  Treasury 
Department.  Thus  far  my  administration  has  been  successful  beyond  my 
hopes,  but  I  can  see  clearly  that  we  can  go  no  further  without  heavy  taxa 
tion  ;  and  he  has  read  history  to  little  purpose  who  does  not  know  that 
heavy  taxes  will  excite  discontent ;  and  that  the  possibility  of  crippled 
finances  and  deranged  payments  and  greater  evils  is  not  so  remote  as  one 
could  wish.  We  must  put  forth  all  our  strength  if  we  want  to  come  out 
of  the  struggle  with  success,  and  with  honor  and  unsullied  credit.  .  .  ." 


CHAPTEE  XXXIX. 

LETTERS   AND   EXTRACTS    OF   LETTERS    WRITTEN   BETWEEN   JANUARY 

1: 1864,  AND  JUNE  30, 1864. 

To  S.  F.  Carey,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

"  "WASHINGTON,  January  5, 1864. 

".  .  .  .  fTlHE  law  giving  a  share  of  seizures  to  informers  is  very 
JL   old/ 

"  It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  any  officer  should  be  stimulated  to  extra 
diligence  by  the  prospect  of  contingent  rewards.  In  many  cases  compensa 
tions  are  paid  by  percentages,  and  no  government  has  yet  found  itself  able 
to  get  along  without  allowing  such  compensation  in  some  cases.  So,  too, 
our  naval  officers  and  seamen  are  stimulated  to  activity  by  the  large  share 
in  prizes  captured  by  them.  Salvage  is  warranted  on  the  same  principle. 
Merchants  and  lawyers,  too,  are  often  paid  by  commission. 

"  Certainly  it  would  be  best  if  we  could  have  a  system  of  fair  compen 
sation  by  salaries,  and  then  the  complete  devotion  by  the  officer  of  all  his 
time  and  labor  and  skill  to  the  public  service.  The  true  idea  of  public 
official  duty  requires  this ;  at  least  during  all  the  time  required  for  official 
labors.  I  have  myself  practised  upon  this  principle,  and  I  require  all  the 
officers  of  the  Department,  except  those  who  have  contingent  compensa 
tion  fixed  by  law,  to  act  upon  it  also.  .  .  ." 

To  Rev.  Dr.  Joshua  Leavitt,  New  York. 

"  WASHINGTON,  January  24, 1864. 

"  Some  time  ago  I  received  a  letter  from  you  about  the  publication  of 
your  article  on  the  Monroe  doctrine.  My  impression  is  that  I  did  not  re 
ply  ;  my  intention  to  do  so  being  frustrated  by  demands  on  my  time  and 
attention  which  pushed  it  out  of  my  thoughts  for  the  time.  Recently  my 
recollection  was  revived  by  receiving  a  copy  of  the  pamphlet ;  and  I  now 
wish  to  say  that  if  in  consequence  of  my  remissness  you  have  been  person 
ally  put  to  any  inconvenience,  I  want  the  privilege  of  reimbursing  it  to 
you.  I  am  not  a  rich  man,  and  I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  say  that  I  have  be 
come  poorer  instead  of  richer  by  reason  of  public  employments  ;  still,  I  can 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE.  399 

perhaps  better  afford  to  pay  such  a  contribution  to  a  public  object  than 
most  editors  of  religious  newspapers. 

"  In  the  main  I  concur  in  your  views ;  wholly  in  their  principle  and  spirit. 
I  believe  that  the  statesmen  whose  views  were  represented  by  Mr.  Monroe's 
message — including  Mr.  Monroe  himself— intended  to  be  understood  in  the 
plain  sense  of  the  language  employed ;  meant  that  any  attempt  to  force  the 
European  system  upon  America  would  be  dangerous  to  our  safety,  and  that 
any  interference  with  any  American  government  by  European  powers  for 
the  purpose  of  oppressing  it  or  forcibly  controlling  its  destiny  would  be 
regarded  as  an  unfriendly  manifestation.  In  this  sense  the  declaration  was 
understood  and  accepted  by  the  American  people,  and  became  a  cardinal 
principle  of  American  policy.  After  all,  however,  it  is  not  so  important  to 
inquire  into  the  history  as  into  the  soundness  of  the  doctrine  and  the  pro 
priety  of  insisting  on  its  application  to  recent  events  in  San  Domingo  and 
Mexico. 

"  It  certainly  would  have  suited  my  temper  and  taste  much  better  to 
do  so  ;  and  yet  I  cannot  blame  Mr.  Seward  for  not  having  done  so.  He 
never  renounced  it ;  he  only  forebore  to  insist  on  it,  when  to  insist  would 
only  have  been  counted  a  menace  and  would  have  precipitated  recogni 
tion  of  the  rebel  Confederacy — and  that  recognition  would  have  been  fol 
lowed  by  war.  .  .  . 

"  But  I  have  written  more  than  I  intended.  Have  you  seen  Baptist 
Noel's  book  on  our  American  rebellion  ?  He  errs  sadly  in  his  account  of 
parties  as  connected  with  slavery.  Can't  you  write  an  article  like  that  on 
the  Monroe  doctrine,  giving  the  true  view  of  political  action  as  influenced 
successively  by  the  Liberty  party  and  the  Independent  Democracy — or,  as 
our  Whig  friends  preferred  to  call  it — the  *  Free-Soil  party  ? '  Who  could 
do  this  so  well  as  you  ?  " 

To  Gerrit  Smith,  Peterloro,  New  YorTc, 

"  WASHINGTON,  March,  2, 1864. 

" ....  I  have  just  read  your  letter  to  your  neighbors,  and  take  a 
moment — not  to  reply  to  it — but  to  express  my  gratification  to  be  remem 
bered  by  you,  whom  I  so  greatly  honor. 

"  Your'letter  does  .not  command  my  assent  in  all  things,  but  in  most  it 
does.  -I  heartily  agree  that  all  our  energies  and  all  our  efforts  and  all  our 
thoughts  ought  to  be  enlisted  in  the  work  of  suppressing  the  rebellion. 

"It  is  by  no  act  of  mine  that  my  name  has  been  brought  into  discus 
sion  in  connection  with  the  succession.  If  I  could  have  my  way,  I  would 
not  have  it  uttered  by  a  living  soul  in  that  connection — nor  any  other  name 
— until  it  would  be  absolutely  necessary  in  order  to  make  a  choice. 

'"  I  do  not  agree  with  you  that  slavery  should  not  be  discussed.  There 
are  powerful  influences  at  work  to  bring  back  the  insurgent  States  with 
slavery.  This  must  be  resisted.  An  amendment  of  the  Constitution  pro 
hibiting  slavery  would  be  an  era  in  the  world's  history.  Reconstitute  the 


400  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

States  by  the  voluntary  action  of  their  several  populations,  and  with  con 
stitutions  prohibiting  slavery,  and  then  crown  the  work  by  a  national 
prohibition.  How  grand  that  would  be  ! 

"  The  amnesty  proclamation  seems  to  fail.  I  don't  like  the  qualifica 
tion  in  the  oath  required ;  nor  the  limitation  of  the  right  of  suffrage  to 
those  who  take  the  oath,  and  are  otherwise  qualified  according  to  the 
State  laws  in  force  before  rebellion.  I  fear  these  are  fatal  concessions. 
Why  should  not  all  soldiers  who  fight  for  their  country  vote  in  it? 
Why  should  not  the  intelligent  colored  man  of  Louisiana  have  a  voice  as 
a  free  citizen  in  restoring  and  maintaining  loyal  ascendency  ?  .  .  . " 

To  William  E.  Dodge,  New  York  City. 

u  WASHINGTON,  March  81,  1864. 

" ....  I  thank  you  for  transmitting  to  me  a  copy  of  the  resolutions 
of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  adopted  on  the  17th  instant. 

"The  merchants  of  New  York  may  rest  assured  that  I  shall  most 
gladly  do  whatever  for  me  is  possible  for  the  security  and  prosperity  of 
business. 

"But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  nothing  short  of  a  return  to 
specie  payments  can  secure  stability  in  the  value  of  currency.  Even  specie 
payments,  it  is  well  known,  do  not  fully  accomplish  that  object.  The 
value  of  money,  as  well  as  of  all  other  subjects,  fluctuates  in  obedience  to 
great  laws,  the  operations  of  which  cannot  always  be  foreseen  or  provided 
for. 

"Our  present  difficulties  arise  mainly  from  excessive  expenditure 
without  adequate  taxation.  They  arise  in  almost  an  equal  degree  from 
the  presence  in  the  channels  of  circulation  of  an  element — I  mean  the  notes 
of  State  banks — which  cannot  be  regulated  or  even  understood  by  the 
national  authorities. 

"  If  these  two  causes  of  disturbance  be  removed  by  the  action  of  Con 
gress,  and  we  have  what  I  greatly  hope,  vigor  and  success  in  the  war,  I 
see  no  reason  why  resumption  of  specie  payments  need  be  very  long 
deferred. 

"  I  have  no  control  over  the  volume  of  expenditure  or  over  the  amount 
of  taxation,  or  over  the  volume  of  circulation  as  affected  by  the  issues  of 
State  banks,  or  over  the  conduct  of  the  war.  I  feel  myself  like  one  un 
dertaking  to  navigate  a  ship  without  a  chart  among  forces  of  winds  and 
currents  which  he  cannot  measure  or  manage.  A.  can  only  do  my  best, 
hoping  the  best,  and  trusting  Him  with  whom  are  the  issues  of  all  events.'*, 

To  Joshua  Leavitt,  D.  D.,  New  York. 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  81,  1864. 

u.  ...  If  the  'judicious  and  patriotic'  men  of  business  to  whom  you 
refer  will  devote  their  energies  to  induce  Congress  to  tax  the  local  bank 
circulation  out  of  existence,  they  will  be  much  better  employed  than  in 


DEPRECIATION  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CURRENCY.  401 

suggesting  large  sacrifices  of  Government  securities  in  order  to  create 
vacuums  to  be  filled  by  the  expansion  of  that  circulation.  We  need  econ 
omy,  energy  in  the  war,  taxation  to  one-half  the  amount  of  our  expendi 
ture,  and  an  exclusive  national  currency.  Give  me  these  things,  and  I 
will  undertake  to  resume  specie  payments  in  six  months,  and  I  will  main 
tain  them  through  the  war.  ..." 

To  Thaddeus  Stevens,  House  of  Representatives.  , 

"  WASHINGTON,  April  11, 1864. 

" .  .  .  .  The  circulation  of  corporation  notes  as  money  under  dissimilar 
laws  of  different  States  contributes  largely  to  the  depreciation  of  the  na 
tional  currency,  and  constitutes  at  this  moment  a  most  serious  danger  to 
the  national  finances. 

"The  laws  making  United  States  notes  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of 
debts  did  not  except  debts  evidenced  by  these  notes;  and  therefore 
operated  as  a  virtual  repeal  of  the  State  laws  by  which  the  corporations 
issuing  them  were  required  to  redeem  them  in  coin.  Availing  themselves 
of  this  legislation,  these  corporations  have  made  the  United  States  notes 
the  basis  of  their  issues,  and  inasmuch  as  these  notes  themselves  cannot  at 
present  be  exchanged  for  coin,  redemption  has  become  merely  nominal. 
No  reduction  in  the  volume  of  national  issues,  under  these  circumstances, 
can  work  material  benefit  to  the  circulation,  for  every  such  reduction 
merely  makes  room  for  fresh  corporation  issues,  which  are  not  always  or 
even  generally  restricted  to  the  amount  of  United  States  notes  withdrawn. 
Thus  the  issues  of  the  State  corporations  create  a  constantly-increasing 
excess  in  the  volume  of  currency  as  compared  with  the  requirements  of 
actual  transactions ;  and  this  excess  works  progressive  depreciation. 

"  To  arrest  this  depreciation  is  an  absolute  necessity,  and  to  effect  this 
object  I  see  no  better  or  more  certain  means  than  judicious  measures  for 
the  exclusion  from  circulation  of  all  notes  intended  to  circulate  as  money, 
and  not  authorized  by  national  legislation. 

"There  can  be  no  hardship  in  such  measures,  for  all  corporations  now 
authorized  to  issue  notes  under  State  laws  can  be  changed  by  proper  pro 
ceedings  into  national  banking  associations.  The  only  effect  will  be  to 
bring  all  circulation  under  national  control  and  prevent  increase  without 
the  sanction  of  Congress.  And  not  only  is  there  no  hardship,  but  the 
security  which  will  be  given  by  a  uniform  currency  to  all  transactions  of 
business  will  be  a  positive  advantage  to  all  institutions  of  discount. 
Even  if  there  be  in  some  cases  a  degree  of  hardship,  it  is  only  that  which 
should  be,  and  by  patriotic  and  loyal  institutions  will  be,  cheerfully  borne 
as  a  sacrifice  to  the  public  safety  and  welfare. 

"  To  the  convenience  of  the  people  in  the  payment  of  internal  taxes ; 
to  the  negotiation  of  loans,  and  to  the  faithful  discharge  of  national  obli 
gations  to  the  army,  the  navy,  and  the  public  creditors  of  every  class,  one 
currency  and  that  a  national  currency,  is  indispensable. 
20 


402  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"The  time  seems  to  have  come  when  Congress, under  the  Constitution, 
should  provide  such  a  currency,  and  make  it  the  exclusive  circulation  or 
the  country,  by  asserting  and  maintaining  the  doctrine  that  the  currency 
belongs  to  the  nation,  and  that  the  emission  of  notes  for  circulation  as  mo 
ney  by  private,  municipal  or  State  authority  is  as  indefensible  as  the  emis 
sion  of  coin  by  the  same  authority,  and  as  subject  to  restriction  and  pro 
hibition  by  Congress  under  the  Constitution.  ..." 

!\ 

To  the  President. 

"  WASHINGTON,  April  14, 1864. 

"  .  .  .  .  Two  measures  are  of  great  importance :  the  exclusion  from 
circulation  of  all  credit  circulation  not  authorized  by  Congress,  and  in 
creased  taxation.  If  Congress  will  make  the  national  banking  system 
safe  and  at  the  same  time  acceptable,  and  enact  a  tax  law  which  will  yield, 
with  duties  on  imports,  four  hundred  millions  of  revenue — or  half  at  least 
of  the  expenditure — there  will  be  no  need  to  fear  financial  disasters,  unless 
we  shall  have  unexpected  military  disasters. 

"  I  have  taken  the  liberty  heretofore,  and  perhaps  too  pertinaciously, 
to  urge  all  possible  economy  compatible  with  efficiency ;  but  I  hope  that 
the  importance  of  it  will  be  thought  a  sufficient  justification. 

"  I  am  glad  to  understand  that  the  military  work  of  suppressing  the 
rebellion  is  now  to  be  prosecuted  with  system  and  vigor.  With  system 
and  vigor  and  economy  in  the  conduct  of  the  war,  and  with  the  financial 
measures  I  have  indicated,  we  may  confidently  expect,  through  the  Divine 
favor,  an  early  and  successful  termination  of  the  struggle,  and  the  restora 
tion  of  peace  with  an  unbroken  Union  of  free  States.  ..." 

To  8.  DeWitt  Bloodgood,  New  York. 

"WASHINGTON,  May  9, 1864. 

'*....  Our  financial  future,  as  I  see  it,  is  clouded  only  by  military  and 
legislative  uncertainties.  If  Congress  will  give  me  the  laws  I  need  for  the 
support  of  the  public  credit,  such  as  the  amended  banking  law,  a  rightly 
framed  loan  bill  and  a  good  tax  bill,  and  if  the  President  will  insure  me 
proper  administrative  support  by  economizing  expenditures  and  the  effec 
tive  application  of  actual  disbursements,  I  can  resume  specie  payments  and 
can  maintain  them  when  resumed.  Doubtless  it  would  be  unwise  to  re 
sume  so  suddenly,  but  it  certainly  would  be  well  to  have  the  power  to  do 
so,  and  it  would  be  well  to  use  the  power  in  a  gradual  and  not  distant 
resumption. 

"  My  whole  plan  has  been  that  of  a  bullionist  and  not  that  of  a  mere 
paper-money  man.  I  have  been  obliged  by  necessity  to  substitute  paper 
for  specie  for  a  time,  but  I  never  have  lost  sight  of  the  necessity  of  resump 
tion  ;  nor,  to  use  a  military  phrase,  have  I  ever  suffered  my  communica 
tions  with  my  base  of  operations  to  be  broken. 

"  The  great  error  which  my  opponents  have  committed  is,  in  my  judg- 


EXPENSES  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT.  403 

ment,  their  endeavor  to  maintain  a  system  of  State  banking  unsuited  to  the 
wants  of  a  great  nation  obliged  to  incur  a  large  debt.  The  national  bank 
ing  system  is  a  necessary,  and  indeed  an  inevitable  step  in  our  financial 
progress  to  a  more  perfect  political  Union.  Had  such  a  system  existed, 
or  rather  had  such  a  system  been  possible,  at  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
specie  payments  need  never  have  been  stopped. 

''But  I  must  not  enlarge.  Before  closing,  however,  let  me  say  that  I 
have  no  intention  of  offering  a  more  advantageous  loan  to  investors  than 
the  ten-forties.  I  have  sometimes  thought  of  offering  to  the  whole  people 
for  a  time  their  choice  of  10-40,  5-20,  or  '81  bonds,  with  an  abatement  from 
the  market  rate  which  would  give  a  slight  advantage  over  subscriptions  at 
par  or  purchase  in  an  ordinary  market.  It  has  occurred  to  me  that  such 
an  offer  at  one-quarter  or  one-half,  or  even  one  per  cent,  below  the  true 
price  (considering  the  ten-forties  as  par),  and  continued  open,  say  for  fifteen, 
twenty,  or  even  thirty  days,  would  bring  very  large  subscriptions.  I  have 
also  thought  of  a  legal  tender,  bearing  interest  at  six  per  cent,  compounded 
every  six  months,  and  payable  with  the  whole  interest  three  years  from 
date ;  or  of  a  seven-thirty  note  with  interest  payable  in  lawful  money  and 
without  the  character  of  a  legal  tender." 

To  Richard  Smith,  Cincinnati. 

"  WASHINGTON,  May  27, 1S64. 

"  The  expenses  of  the  Government  average  $2,500,000 ;  they  often  exceed 
that  amount. — $2,500,000  a  day  is,  in  round  numbers,  $66,000,000  a  month. 
There  are  two  ways  to  provide  this  sum :  one  is  by  borrowing,  the  other  is 
by  issuing  legal-tender  notes  in  some  form.  Suppose  I  advertise  for  a  loan 
of  sixty-five  millions  to  pay  the  expenses  of  one  month  at  six  per  cent.,  at 
what  rate  would  the  bonds  be  taken  ?  The  six  per  cent,  bonds  of  1881 
sold  yesterday  at  114.  The  real  value,  accrued  interest  deducted,  is  be 
tween  112  and  11 2 £.  Now,  suppose  sixty-five  millions  put  on  the  market, 
what  price  could  be  obtained  ?  Possibly  110.  Suppose  another  sixty-five 
millions  put  on  the  market  next  month  :  what  price  then  ?  Doubtful  if 
par.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  to  obtain  money  by  loans  in  this  way,  however 
it  might  suit  the  ideas  of  some  people,  who  suppose  that  the  capacity  of 
absorbing  loans  is  infinite,  would  hardly  work  in  practice. 

"All  that  can  be  done  with  loans  in  any  form  is  to  absorb  what  natu 
rally  seeks  investment  in  this  description  of  securities ;  and  if  this  capacity 
of  absorption  be  crowded,  the  effect  of  the  glut  will  be  found  in  a  rapid 
diminution  in  the  price  of  bonds  until  they  become  entirely  unavailable. 

"  How  idle  it  is,  then,  to  clamor  about  raising  money  exclusively  by 
loans ! — about  selling  the  bonds  for  what  they  will  bring,  and  all  that ! 
Under  existing  circumstances,  the  best  that  can  possibly  be  done  is,  to  get 
all  that  can  be  got  by  loans  without  greatly  damaging  those  already  in 
the.  market,  and  to  meet  the  remainder  of  expenses  by  legal  tenders  so 
made  as  to  inflate  the  circulation  as  little  as  possible.  It  was  no  choice  of 


404  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

mine  to  issue  the  5  per  cent,  legal  tenders ;  it  was  a  necessity  created  by 
the  inadequacy  of  revenues  as  compared  with  expenditures,  and  by  the 
impossibility  of  making  loans  at  any  rate  of  interest. 

"  It  is  a  great  mistake,  however,  to  think  that  the  currency  is  inflated 
by  the  amount  of  those  issues.  About  two  hundred  millions  of  notes  were 
issued.  The  issue  no  doubt  inflated  the  currency,  but  the  issue  of  forty 
or  fifty  millions  of  non-paying  legal  tenders  would  have  inflated  it  equally. 
The  truth  is  that  the  currency  was  surcharged  when  the  issue  began,  and 
the  true  remedy  was  taxation  enough  to  pay  so  large  a  proportion  of  ex 
penses  that  the  residue  could  have  been  provided  for  by  loans.  And  the 
real  remedy  for  present  evils  is,  greater  taxation,  diminished  expenditure, 
and  preparation  for  a  return  to  specie  payments. 

"  .  .  .  .  Wliat  I  say  is,  that  the  riationaTtrovernment  has  been  obliged 
to  issue  legal-tender  notes,  and  that  I  do  not  see  any  necessity  for  the 
issue  of  paper  money  by  the  State  banks.  The  two  circulations  together 
make  the  inflation.  Which  can  be  withdrawn  with  the  greatest  advantage 
to  the  Government  ?  This  is  the  present  question  :  not  what  causes  the 
inflation.  I  know  of  no  just  claim  which  the  State  banks  have  to  make 
money  for  the  country.  I  know  that  it  is  a  necessity  for  the  nation  to 
have  the  control  of  the  circulation  of  the  nation.  I  think,  then,  that  the 
State  bank  currency  should  be  withdrawn,  and  that  no  currency  should  be 
allowed  except  the  national  currency.  So  far  as  this  consists  of  legal 
tenders,  their  issue  and  circulation  are  a  direct  gain  to  the  country,  and  if 
not  issued  in  excess  the  benefit  would  be  unmixed.  So  far  as  it  consists 
of  notes  of  national  banks,  it  is  recommended  by  the  indispensable  neces 
sity  of  such  institutions  to  make  a  uniform  national  currency  permanent ; 
by  the  benefits  derived  from  the  support  afforded  by  them  to  the  credit  of 
Government  bonds,  and  by  the  convenience  and  utility  of  those  institutions 
to  the  Government  in  other  important  respects. 

"  ....  I  hope  that,  if  I  cannot  altogether  prevent  inflation,  I  do  all 
that  is  possible  under  existing  circumstances.  I  hope  that  the  legislation 
of  Congress  at  this  session,  though  long  delayed,  and  the  victories  of  our 
armies,  though  eager  expectation  remains  still  unsatisfied,  will  soon  enable 
us  to  pay  more  as  we  go,  and  make  it  possible  to  do  so  by  reducing  and 
systematizing  expenditures." 

To  Miss  Mary  A.  Snyder,  Hiss  Eliza  S.  Duffield,  and  other  Ladies  of  Phila 
delphia. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  17,  1864. 

"  ....  I  am  greatly  obliged  by  your  present  and  by  the  kind  note 
which  accompanied  it.  The  picture  was  intended  to  remind  me  of  my 
work  in  the  establishment  of  the  national  banking  system.  If  the  results 
of  that  system  are  such  as  I  hope,  I  shall  be  satisfied.  I  have  sought  to 
give  a  national  currency  to  the  country,  so  sound  that  no  laboring  man 
shall  be  cheated  of  his  wages  by  bank  insolvency,  and  so  uniform  that  a 
traveler  may  pay  his  bills  without  exchange  of  money  from  one  end  of 


TWO  GRAND  OBJECTS.  405 

the  land  to  the  other.  I  have  sought,  also,  while  securing  such  a  currency, 
to  establish  such  foundations  of  national  credit  in  the  security,  value,  and 
diffusion  of  national  bonds,  that  we  may  be  able  to  'meet  hereafter  with 
energy  and  promptitude  any  dangers  arising  from  abroad,  while  disunion 
will  be  impossible  at  home.  Time  must  try  my  work  and  test  its  utility 
or  inutility  ;  I  claim  only  to  have  sought  the  best  ways  of  service  to  our 
country.  ..." 

To  William  Cullen  Bryant,  New  York.  t-x 

"WASHINGTON,  June  80,  1864. 

"  .  .  .  .  Your  good  opinion  has  always  been  one  of  my  chief  treasures, 
because  it  is  the  honest  opinion  of  a  candid  and  just  observer.  I  have 
never  expected  it  to  extend  to  all  the  measures  the  exigencies  of  the  coun 
try  have  compelled  me  to  adopt  ;  and  yet,  looking  back,  I  can  see  now  no 
measure  which  my  judgment  condemns  except  that  required  by  the  New 
York  banks,  the  issue  of  legal-tender  coupons.  My  grand  objects  have  been, 
first,  to  provide  for  the  vast  demands  of  the  war,  and  second,  the  substitu 
tion  of  a  national  bank-note  currency  for  State  bank-note  currency,  and 
through  the  last  resumption  of  specie  payments,  and  so  permanence  and 
strength  in  the  financial  order.  I  think  if  we  could  compare  notes,  very 
little  difference  would  be  found  between  our  opinions. 

But  it  is  of  little  importance  to  the  country  now  what  my  financial 
views  may  be.  A  sense  of  duty  to  myself  and  to  the  country  —  imperative 
you  will  think,  I  hope,  it  must  have  been  —  constrained  me  yesterday  to 
tender  my  resignation  to  the  President,  and  it  has  been  accepted  to-day. 
So  I  am  no  longer  Secretary.  If  I  feel  some  regret  that  I  cannot  carry  out 
my  ideas  to  consummation,  it  is  compensated  by  the  sense  of  relief  from 
crushing  responsibilities. 

"  With  this  act  terminates,  I  trust,  my  whole  connection  with  official 
life.  There  has  never  been  any  thing  for  me  but  opportunity  for  work  ; 
and  I  gladly  surrender  all  claims  upon  it  to  those  who  may  prize  it 
more.  .  .  ." 


TO 


CHAPTEE    XL. 

SUMMARY — MR.    CHASERS    FINANCIAL    OBJECTS TO  OBTAIN   SUPPLIES 

TO  PROVIDE  A  PERMANENT  CURRENCY TO  PROVIDE  A  FUND 
ING  SYSTEM  AND  SECURE  CONTROLLABILITY  OF  *THE  PUBLIC 
DEBT OBJECTIONS  TO  LONG  BONDS TO  SECURE  EARLY  RE 
SUMPTION GENERAL  EFFECTS  OF  HIS  MEASURES LETTERS  TO 

COLONEL    VAN   BUREN   AND    SECRETARY   FESSENDEN. 

IN  all  Ms  financial  measures,  Mr.  Chase  kept  steadily  in  view 
three  great  objects : 

1.  To  establish  satisfactory  relations  between  the  public  cred 
it  and  the  productive  industry  of  the  country ;  in  other  words,  to 
obtain  supplies  for  the  army  and  the  navy.     The  suspension  of 
the  banks  put  an  end  to  the  first  and  most  obvious  resort — loans 
of  gold — and  made  new  methods  indispensable.    It  was  then 
that  the  Secretary  resorted  to  legal-tender  notes,  made  them  the 
the  currency  of  the  country,  and  borrowed  them  as  cash.     The 
patriotism  of  the  people  came  to  the  aid  of  the  labors  of  the 
Treasury  and  the  legislation  of  Congress;  and  the  first  great 
object  was  made  secure. 

2.  To  provide  against  disastrous  financial  results  on  the  re 
turn  of  peace.     In  Mr.  Chase's  judgment,  this  could  most  safely 
be  accomplished  by  the  establishment  of  a  national  currency,  as 
was  done  by  the  acts  of  Congress  authorizing  national  banking  as 
sociations.     At  the  beginning  of  the  war,  there  were  about  1,500 
State  banks  in  existence,  and  their  proprietors  and  officers  sought 
to  make  the  paper  of  these  institutions  the  currency  of  the  coun 
try.     The  Secretary  was  inflexible  against  this,  and  confined  his 


A  FUNDING  SYSTEM.  407 

loans  to  "greenbacks,"  but  lie  did  not  wish  to  drive  out  the 
State  bank  circulation,  nor  did  he  think  it  exactly  honest  to  do 
so,  without  giving  them  a  just  equivalent,  and  so  neutralize 
their  opposition  to  a  national  currency,  and  as  far  as  possible 
make  them  allies  instead  of  enemies.  And  though  there  was  a 
good  deal  of  antagonism  between  the  Secretary  and  some  of  the 
more  prominent  representatives  of  the  State  bank  system,  and 
Mr.  Chase  was  resolute  in  his  purpose  to  suppress  their  circulat 
ing  notes,  if  he  could,  he  did  not  fail  to  admit  that  they  had 
rendered  great  and  important  services.  The  national  banks  were 
certain,  however,  in  many  ways,  to  be  inestimably  more  useful 
than  the  State  banks,  as  well  during  the  war  as  in  time  of  peace. 
Besides  which,  Mr.  Chase  believed  not  only  in  the  constitutional 
right  of  the  Federal  Government  to  control  the  circulation, 
but  he  believed  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  do  so. 
And  it  was  in  the  spirit  of  this  belief  that  he  wrote  to  Mrs. 
Sprague,  December  14,  1869 :  "  I  read  an  opinion  yesterday 
which  cost  me  no  little  labor ;  and  I  was  glad  to  have  the  privi 
lege  of  reading  it ;  for  I  think  it  of  great  importance  to  all  the 
business  interests  of  the  country,  and  especially  to  men  and 
women  who  depend  on  their  daily  labor  for  daily  livelihood. 
It  simply  affirms  the  power  of  Congress  to  furnish  the  money 
circulation  of  the  country,  whether  in  coin  or  credit,  and  restrain 
the  issue  of  currency  by  State  banks  and  individuals,  without 
authority  of  national  law."  1 

3.  The  third  division  of  labor  was  to  provide  a  funding  sys 
tem.  It  was  necessary,  and  unavoidable,  during  the  rebellion, 
that  every  means  of  credit  should  be  used.  The  Secretary  bor 
rowed  in  every  way  that  he  could  at  reasonable  rates,  and  hence 
the  adoption  of  different  forms  of  public  obligations :  temporary 
loans,  certificates  of  indebtedness,  7-30  notes,  compound-interest 
notes,  Treasury  notes  payable  after  one  and  two  years,  etc. ;  it 
being  found  by  experience  that  the  form  which  suited  one  hold 
er  did  not  suit  another,  while  inordinate  demands  for  the  army 
and  navy  made  it  necessary  that  every  dollar  should  be  had 
which  could  be  raised  under  any  form. 

But  it  was  necessary  also  to  have  funding  loans  into  which 
all  these  temporary  loans  could  be  ultimately  merged.  To  this 

1  This  was  in  the  case  of  the  Veazie  Bank  against  Fenno.    8  "Wallace,  638. 


408  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

end  Mr.  Chase  establislied  the  5-20  and  the  10-40  loans.  He 
believed  that  with  the  prestige  of  the  5-20  loan,  and  certain  that 
a  10-4:0  five  per  cent,  bond  was  intrinsically  worth  par,  all  the 
sums  needed  for  the  war  could  be  obtained  by  the  sale  of  10-40's 
and  by  temporary  loans.  It  was  into  10-40's  that  Mr.  Chase 
intended — had  he  remained  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury — 
ultimately  to  consolidate  the  national  debt.  He  believed  this 
could  be  done  on  the  return  of  peace,  and  he  did  not  change 
his  opinion  upon  this  subject  when  peace  was  restored  to  the 
country,  and  a  different  policy  was  adopted.  The  advantages 
of  a  form  of  loan,  where  the  option  of  payment  or  continuance, 
after  short  terms,  is  with  the  Government,  are  obvious.  The 
experience  of  the  Treasury  confirms  what  is  thus  said  to  be 
obvious.  In  President  Pierce's  time,  there  were  outstanding 
six  principal  descriptions  of  debt ;  that  is  to  say,  the  loans  of 
1842,  1843,  1846,  184T,  1848,  and  the  Texas  indemnity,  payable 
respectively  after  1862,  1853,  1856,  1868,  and  1865 ;  two  of 
them  being  payable,  therefore,  during  President  Pierce's  term, 
and  the  others  in  five,  eight,  and  eleven  years  from  the  end  of 
it.  The  Government,  having  the  means,  desired  to  anticipate  pay 
ment  of  these  loans,  and  did  anticipate  payment  of  more  than  half 
the  whole  amount.  It  paid  $48,060,Y87.37  at  premiums  amount 
ing  to  $4,609,882.31.  The  Texas  indemnity  was  a  five  per  cent, 
loan  maturing  after  1865.  Of  course  it  had  the  longest  time  to 
run.  The  books  of  the  Treasury  Department  will  show  what 
premiums  were  paid ;  but  it  is  worth  noticing  that  Congress  in 
1854  authorized  the  payment  of  $2,000,000  mainly  for  the  privi 
lege  of  anticipating  the  payment  of  $5,000,000  of  this  same 
indemnity. 

For  the  plan  of  long  loans  Mr.  Chase  had  a  great  aversion. 
"  It  subverts  the  principle,"  he  said  in  a  letter  to  Jay  Cooke, 
May  11, 1866,  "  upon  which  I  arranged  the  whole  system  of 
loans.  ,It  was  one  of  my  leading  purposes  to  introduce  into 
our  financial  methods  the  principle  of  controllability.  I  could 
never  consent  that  the  people  should  be  subjected  to  the  money 
lenders,  but  insist  that  the  money-lenders  should  rather  be  sub 
jected  to  the  people.  Capital  always  takes  care  of  itself.  It 
organizes  itself  easily,  and  acts  with  energy.  Labor  does  not 
easily  organize  itself,  nor  can  it  act  with  energy,  nor  take  care 


OBJECTIONS  TO  LOXG  LOANS.  409 

of  itself  so  efficiently.  The  reason  is  plain — capital  is  the  prop 
erty  of  the  few  and  labor  of  the  many.  Now,  to  insure  the 
right  of  the  people  to  make  the  best  possible  arrangement  of 
their  debt,  I  introduced  the  principle  of  redeemability  after 
short  periods,  and  payability  at  fixed  but  remoter  dates.  Thus 
the  5-20  loan  was  made  redeemable  at  any  time  after  five  years 
and  payable  twenty  years  after  date :  that  is  to  say,  the  people 
have  a  right  to  pay  off  that  loan  at  any  time  during  the  fifteen 
years  between  the  end  of  five  and  the  end  of  twenty  years.  .  .  . 
So,  too,  the  1040  loan  at  five  per  cent,  was  made  redeemable 
after  ten  and  payable  after  forty  years.  My  purpose  was,  to 
enable  the  Government  to  negotiate  cheaper  loans — at  four  to 
five  per  cent. — in  the  intervals  during  which  the  right  of  redemp 
tion  was  in  its  hands.  This  arrangement  was  manifestly  in  the 
interest  of  the  people,  and  was  not  for  the  benefit  of  any  par 
ticular  class.  And  I  do  not  doubt  that  a  wise  administration  of 
affairs  will  produce  such  a  state  of  prosperity  that  the  interest 
upon  our .  debt  can  be  reduced,  in  the  course  of  ten  or  fifteen 
years,  to  the  cheapest  rate  paid  by  any  nation.  Why  not  ?  "  1 

It  was  Mr.  Chase's  conviction  that  his  measures  tended  to 
facilitate  an  easy  and  prompt  resumption  of  specie  payments  at 
the  close  of  the  war,  and  had  he  remained  in  the  Traasury  he 
would  certainly  have  attempted  to  resume  within  a  few  months 
after  Lee's  surrender.  It  was  his  belief  that  this  was  practicable 
and  safe  at  any  time  within  a  year  after  that  event,  and  that  it 
might  have  been  effected  then  with  far  less  embarrassment  and 
danger  than  at  a  future  time.  In  his  judgment,  every  year's  de 
lay  added  to  the  importance  of  the  subject,  since  greater  diffi 
culties  were  certain  to  arise  as  the  period  of  inconvertibility  was 

1  Not  only  was  it  Mr.  Chase's  policy  to  keep  the  public  debt  within  easy  control 
of  the  Government  so  far  as  regarded  the  right  of  redemption,  but  he  felt  that  there 
was  no  just  reason  why  property  in  interest-paying  securities  of  the  Government 
should  not  be  subject  to  national  taxation.  "  It  is  neither  morally  right  nor  politi 
cally  safe,"  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Greeley  in  May,  1866,  "  to  exempt  bonds  more  than 
other  property  from  contribution  to  the  national  burdens.  Exemption  from  State 
taxation  is  necessary  to  preserve  the  national  power  to  borrow  money,  from  inva 
sion,  crippling,  and  possible  destruction ;  but  national  taxation  is  the  exercise  of  the 
nation's  own  discretion,  and  will  always  be  so  exercised  as  not  to  injure  the  nation's 
means  of  defense  and  security.  Exemption  of  this  species  of  property  from  national 
taxation  will  certainly  invite  assault  from  political  opponents,  and  is  as  dangerous  as 
it  is  inexpedient." 


410  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

prolonged.  "  The  way  to  resumption,"  he  said,  in  a  letter  to 
Mr.  Greeley,  May  17,  1866,  "is  to  resume."  What  his  plan 
would  have  been  he  has  not  put  upon  record,  further  than 
to  say  that  it  would  have  been  by  diffusion  of  the  gold  supply 
rather  than  by  contraction  of  the  circulation. 

....  The  science  of  finance  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  a 
fixed  science,  since  upon  no  other  subject  do  men  more  widely 
differ.  Lord  Macaulay  said  of  Pitt's  sinking  fund  that  it  was  a 
"juggle:"  that  Pitt  "first  persuaded  himself  and  then  the 
whole  nation,  including  his  opponents,  that  a  new  sinking  fund 
which,  so  far  as  it  differed  from  former  sinking  funds  differed 
for  the  worse,  would,  by  virtue  cf  some  mysterious  power  of 
propagation  belonging  to  money,  put  into  the  pocket  of  the 
public  creditor  great  sums  not  taken  out  of  the  pocket  of  the  tax 
payer.  The  country  hailed  .  .  .'  .  with  delight  and  boundless 
confidence,  a  remedy  which  was  no  remedy.  The  minister  was 
almost  universally  extolled  as  the  greatest  of  financiers."  (Lord 
Macaulay's  Essays,  "  "William  Pitt.")  "  These  dangers,"  said  Sir 
Archibald  Alison — that  is,  the  dangers  to  the  public  prosperity 
likely  to  result  from  the  pressure  of  the  British  national  debt — 
"took  strong  possession  of  the  mind  of  Mi*.  Pitt,  but  instead  of 
sinking  in  despair  under  the  difficulties  of  the  subject,  he  applied 
the  energies  of  his  understanding  with  the  greater  vigor  to  over 
come  them.  Nor  was  it  long  before  he  perceived  by  what 
means  this  great  object  could  with  ease  and  certainty  be  effected. 
.  .  .  Mr.  Pitt,  with  the  instinctive  sagacity  of  genius.  .  .  .  es 
tablished  a  machine  by  which  the  vast  debt  of  England  might, 
without  difficulty,  be  discharged."  (See  Alison,  "  History  of 
Europe,  First  Series,  Chapter  XLL")  Both  these  distinguished 
historians  describe  the  same  financial  measure. 

Differences  of  opinion  as  wide  as  these  have  existed,  and  do 
still  exist,  touching  many  of  Mr.  Chase's  measures.  He  was  not 
the  author  of  the  legal-tender  system,  and  acquiesced  in  it  rather 
than  approved  it ;  but  he  was  the  author  of  the  national  banking 
system,  and  though  it  cannot  be  denied  that  it  is  obnoxious  to 
some  serious  and  important  objections,  it  is  certain,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  it  is  incomparably  the  safest  and  soundest  banking 
system  the  country  has  ever  known.  The  benefits  of  it  are 
familiar  to  every  citizen,  and  it  seems  solidly  intrenched  in  our 


GENERAL  RESULTS.  411 

business  habits  and  systems,  and  is  free  from  probability  that  it 
will  ever  become  a  political  instrument  in  the  hands  of  any  Ad 
ministration.  No  better  loan  system  than  that  adopted  by  Mr. 
Chase  could  have  been  devised.  Under  it  the  public  loans  were 
absorbed  to  a  surprising  extent,  with  great  steadiness,  and  at 
rates  the  most  economical.  Had  he  yielded  to  the  clamor  of 
"  free-trade  in  bonds "  and  sold  them  for  "  what  they  would 
bring  in  open  market,"  the  public  debt  would  have  been  largely 
enhanced,  though  bankers  and  brokers  would  doubtless  have 
made  more  money  than  they  did.  The  country  was  in  the 
midst  of  a  war  of  extraordinary  magnitude  and  destructiveness, 
but,  under  the  general  operation  of  Mr.  Chase's  measures,  its 
prosperity  was  astonishing.  At  the  beginning  of  the  war  the 
general  wealth  was  estimated  at  $16,000,000,000;  in  18TO  it 
was  estimated,  upon  careful  computation,  at  $25,000,000,000. 
This  was  an  immense  accumulation  in  the  progress  of  a  single 
decade,  and  shows  an  unparalleled  increase  in  productive  energy 
despite  the  pressure  and  waste  of  the  war.  But  of  course  a 
large  part  of  it  was  due  to  the  stimulus  given  by  Govern 
ment  demand  to  the  inventive  faculty  of  the  country.  It  has 
been  shown  that,  notwithstanding  the  withdrawal  of  30,000 
agricultural  laborers  of  Iowa  from  their  home  pursuits  into 
the  army,  their  places  were  more  than  filled  by  improved 
agricultural  machinery  and  its  immensely  extended  use.1  Mr. 
Chase,  after  a  careful  investigation  into  a  particular  branch  of 
industry  (the  boot  and  shoe  manufacture),  found  that  by  the  in 
troduction  of  machinery  the  capacity  of  the  country  for  the  pro 
duction  of  boots  and  shoes  was  much  greater  in  1864  than  it  was 
in  1860.  Nevertheless,  the  substitution  of  a  Government  cur 
rency  of  uniform  value  and  admitted  credit  made  the  rewards 
of  labor  and  invention  sure  and  adequate,  and  furnished  a  sound 
basis  for  the  enlarged  production. 

The  enhancement  in  prices  which  happened  during  the  last 
six  months  of  Mr.  Chase's  administration  is  not  fairly  chargeable 
to  the  financial  management,  but  rather  to  the  prolongation  of 
the  war  and  the  want  of  success  in  conducting  it,  and  loss  of 
confidence  'in  the  ultimate  reestablishment  of  the  national  au- 

1  So  stated  by  David  A.  Wells,  the  distinguished  economist,  in  one  of  his  reports 
as  Special  Commissioner  of  the  Revenue. 


412  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

thority.  The  proof  is,  the  rapid  appreciation  of  the  national 
currency  immediately  upon  the  crushing  out  of  the  rebellion. 
Gold,  from  a  premium  of  128  per  cent,  on  the  1st  of  January, 
1865,  sunk  to  40  per  cent,  on  the  1st  of  July  subsequent,  with 
out  any  material  reduction  in  the  aggregate  sum  of  the  circula 
tion. 

....  The  period  of  severest  embarrassment  experienced  by 
the  country  during  Mr.  Chase's  administration  was  in  the  interval 
between  January  1, 1864,  and  the  30th  of  June  of  the  same  year. 
Mr  Chase,  in  a  letter  to  Colonel  John  D.  Yan  Buren,  of  New 
York,  April  17, 1865,  explains  the  causes  of  that  embarrassment, 
so  far  as  they  were  due  to  his  own  measures,  and  in  a  letter  to 
Mr.  Secretary  Fessenden,  August  27,  1864,  describes  the  reme 
dies  he  should  have  adopted  had  he  remained  at  the  head  of  the 
Treasury : 

To  Colonel  Van  Buren. 

" .  .  .  .  JThat  paper,  to  be  a  useful  currency,  must  be  normally  equiva 
lent  to  coin  by  being  made  its  actual  representative,  I  have  never  doubted. 
An  emergency  may  justify,  and,  at  the  time  when  the  legal-tender  act  was 
passed,  did,  in  my  judgment,  actually  justify  the  substitution  of  legal-ten 
der  notes  for  coin. 

"  I  never  contemplated,  however,  an  issue  of  such  notes  beyond  the 
amount  which  should  be  actually  needed  for  the  purposes  of  exchange, 
were  the  currency  composed  of  coin  and  its  equivalent.  Nor  has  the 
amount  of  notes  which  can  be  properly  regarded -as  currency,  ever  exceeded 
that  limit.  The  largest  amount  ever  issued  was  in  round  numbers  four 
hundred  and  fifty  millions,  of  which  fifty  millions  were  issued  gradually  in 
redemption  of  temporary  deposits,  and  immediately  put  in  course  of  reduc 
tion.  Of  the  whole  amount,  from  ten  to  thirty  millions — say  an  average 
of  fifteen  millions — was  constantly  in  the  Treasury. 

"  The  extreme  exigencies  created  by  the  vast  expenditures  of  the  war, 
and  the  indisposition  of  Congress  to  impose  the  necessary  taxes,  raised  a 
clamor  for  increased  issues.  This  I  resisted,  and  made  every  effort  in  my 
power  to  raise  the  sums  needed  by  loans.  The  embarrassments  thrown  in 
my  way  by  unscrupulous  opposition  within  and  without  the  organization 
which  supported  the  President,  hindered  the  success  of  these  efforts  and 
made  them  less  fruitful  than  I  hoped.  I  was  compelled  to  use  some  ex 
pedients  for  payment  of  the  army  and  the  navy,  or  see  the  defeat  of  all  our 
efforts  to  save  the  integrity  of  the  country.  I  adopted  a  middle  course 
between  the  issue  of  more  currency,  properly  so  called — that  is,  notes  not 
bearing  interest,  receivable  for  debts  and  made  legal  tender  in  payment — 
and  the  ordinary  exchange  of  bonds  for  money  by  loans. 

"  I  issued  notes  bearing  interest  and  made  legal  tender  only  for  their 


FINANCIAL  INTENTIONS.  413 

face  amount.  I  was  aware,  of  course,  that  these  notes  would  to  some  extent 
be  used  as  currency  ;  at  first  to  a  very  great  extent,  but  less  and  less  as  the 
interest  should  accumulate.  The  first  issues  bore  an  interest  of  five  per 
cent.,  and  on  a  portion  of  them  the  interest  was  represented  by  coupons 
payable  every  six  months.  The  coupon  notes  were  issued  in  compliance 
with  the  wishes  of  the  New  York  banks,  a  compliance  which  I  had  reason 
to  regret.  It  was  evident,  indeed,  that  the  periodical  payments  of  interest 
would  periodically  make  the  notes  simple  legal  tender,  and  so  increase 
from  time  to  time  the  volume  of  currency,  and  expose  the  Government  and 
the  business  community  to  the  evil  of  recurring  inflation  and  contraction. 
To  prevent  this  evil  which  was  magnified  by  interested  parties,  but  which 
was  a  real  evil,  I  withdrew  from  the  holders,  by  means  of  loans,  a  large 
amount — say  sixty  or  seventy  millions — before  the  maturity  of  the  first 
coupons.  The  remedy  was  effectual.  There  was  no  expansion,  but  a  con 
traction  at  the  time  the  expansion  was  expected. 

"  At  this  time,  believing  the  rate  of  five  per  cent,  too  low  to  secure  the 
withdrawal  of  the  notes  from  circulation  as  rapidly  as  was  desirable,  and 
confirmed  in  my  conviction  of  the  impolicy  of  issuing  legal-tender  notes 
with  interest  payable  periodically,  I  determined  on  the  issue  of  compound- 
interest  notes ;  that  is,  notes  made  legal  tender  for  their  face,  JLmt  bearing 
interest  at  six  per  cent,  compounded  semi-annually  for  three  years,  and 
payable  only  at  the  expiration  of  three  years.  These  notes  I  intended  to 
substitute  for  the  five  per  cent,  legal-tender  notes,  but  I  had  no  idea  of  in 
creasing  the  volume  already  issued  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  my  purpose 
and  expectation,  if  I  could  obtain  the  necessary  legislation  from  Congress, 
to  diminish  it  gradually  until  payments  in  specie  could  be  safely  resumed. 
With  a  uniform  national  currency  I  believed,  and  yet  believe,  that  resump 
tion  could  be  effected  with  less  embarrassment  than  has  heretofore  at 
tended  upon  such  a  condition  of  our  own  or  any  other  country. 

"  It  was  at  this  time  that  the  differences  between  myself  and  the  Presi 
dent  led  to  my  resignation. 

"  After  that  the  exigencies  which  had  induced  me  to  resort  to  interest- 
bearing  legal  tenders,  induced  my  successor  to  issue  the  compound  notes 
and  to  increase  the  certificates  beyond  the  limits  of  my  own  intention. 
But  there  was  still  no  increase  of  the  legal  tenders  properly  so  called. 
The  amount  of  them  in  the  Treasury  and  out  of  the  Treasury  in  circulation, 
when  I  left  the  Department,  was  about  $430,000,000.  On  the  31st  of 
March,  1865,  it  was  $433,160,569.  I  had  issued  of  compound-interest  notes 
about  $15,000,000,  and  contemplated  an  additional  issue  in  substitution 
for  five  per  cent,  notes  withdrawn,  of  about  $40,000,000.  The  amount 
issued  on  the  31st  of  March  was  $156,477,650.  The  total  amount  of 
legal  tenders  I  issued,  with  and  without  coupons  attached,  was  about 
$211,000,000,  and  the  amount  withdrawn,  at  the  time  I  left  the  De 
partment,  was  about  $80,000,000.  No  addition,  I  believe,  has  been 
made  to  the  issue,  and  it  appears  to  have  stood,  on  the  1st  of  March,  at 
$211,000,000,  with  an  amount  withdrawn  of  $141,477,050,  leaving  out- 


414  ^IFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

standing  $69,522,350.  The  whole  amount  is  now  due,  or  nearly  due,  and 
will  be  paid  as  presented  or  absorbed  in  new  loans. 

"  This  statement  will  show  you  the  true  condition  of  the  currency, 
exclusive  of  that  furnished  by  the  State  banks  and  the  national  banks. 
The  rapid  conversion  of  the  former  into  the  latter  makes  it  certain  that 
the  currency  of  the  country  will  soon  be  wholly  national.  I  hope  that  the 
converted  banks  will  be  required  to  substitute  the  national  for  the  State 
currency,  in  which  case  no  increase  will  arise  from  the  issue  of  the 
former.  It  will  be  easy  to  prevent  any  increase  at  all  by  withdrawing, 
upon  the  issue  of  circulation  to  national  banks,  an  amount  of  ordinary 
legal  tenders,  equal  to  the  excess  of  national  bank-notes  issued  over  State 
bank-notes  withdrawn,  and,  if  necessary,  issuing  in  their  stead  compound- 
interest  notes,  which  will  gradually  lose  the  character  of  currency  and 
take  that  of  debt. 

"  So,  you  see,  I  think  the  currency  now  certain  to  improve,  if  the 
Treasury  is  judiciously  managed  and  is  not  overwhelmed  by  excessive 
expenditures.  I  have  great  confidence  in  its  present  head ;  and  I  feel  con 
fident,  too,  that  expenditures  will  be  retrenched  as  fast  as  possible  and 
soon  brought  within  the  resources  supplied  by  revenues.  Then  borrowing 
will  cease  and  reduction  begin. 

"Your  plan  of  substitution  of  gold  accumulation  for  redemption  would 
no  doubt  improve  the  currency.  The  main  objection  to  it  is  the  danger 
attending  the  custody  of  such  accumulation.  Who  will  keep  it  ?  "Who 
will  keep  it  safely  ?  Who  will  keep  the  keepers  ?  And  does  it  not  in 
volve  the  substitution  of  all  bank-note  currency,  however  safe  or  surely 
convertible  ?  And  can  such  a  revolution  be  achieved  ? " 

To  Mr.  Secretary  Fessenden. 

11 1  write  to  fulfill  the  promise  I  made  you,  that  I  would  give  you  my 
views  on  the  financial  situation. 

"  I  assume  that  the  daily  disbursements  or  engagements  amount  to  an 
average  of  $2,700,000,  counting  week-days  only.  This  will  make  a  total 
of  $848,000,000,  in  round  figures,  for  the  fiscal  year  1864-'65.  Take  from 
this  aggregate  sum  the  amount  required  for  coin  interest  and  other  coin 
payments,  and  supplied  from  customs,  say  $70,000,000,  and  there  remains 
for  other  objects  $775,000,  to  be  supplied  from  loans  and  revenue  other 
than  customs.  The  rate  of  receipts  from  internal  revenue,  since  the  1st  of 
July,  indicates  an  income  from  this  source  of  about  $18,000,000  per  month, 
or  $216,000,000  a  year,  which  sum  will  be  increased  by  the  receipts  from 
special  income  tax  to  $236,000,000,  or  perhaps  to  $240,000,000.  To  this 
may  be  added  $25,000,000  from  purchase  and  sale  of  the  products  of  the 
insurgent  States,  if  our  armies  are  successful  and  the  Treasury  derives  from 
this  source  all  it  legitimately  may :  $25,000,000  may  be  too  large  a  sum, 
but,  taking  it  as  correctly  estimated,  the  whole  amount  of  revenue,  except 
customs,  may  be  set  down  at  $265,000,000  for  the  year.  Take  this  sum 


FINANCIAL.  415 

from  the  estimated  expenditures,  and  you  have  $510,000,000  to  be  pro 
vided  by  loans  in  some  form ;  say,  in  round  numbers,  $1,600,000  each  week 
day.  If  there  is  to  be  a  reduction  of  the  circulation — which  I  hoped  and 
expected  to  effect  at  the  rate  of  say  $10,000,000  per  month — the  sum  of 
$120,000,000  must  be  added.  But  this  will  not  increase  the  total  of  the 
debt,  but  is  merely  a  change  in  form.  The  real  increase  will  be  repre 
sented,  of  course,  by  the  loans  made  to  meet  disbursements  beyond  revenue. 

"  How  to  obtain  loans  is  the  question  of  pressing  importance.  How  to 
obtain  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  improve  rather  than  injure  the  public 
credit,  and  the  general  interests  dependent  on  the  condition  of  the  currency, 
is  a  question  of  equal  importance  if  not  of  such  pressing  exigency. 

"  When  I  left  the  Department  a  large  amount  of  five  per  cent,  legal  ten 
ders  had  been  withdrawn ;  say  $80,000,000.  I  expected  to  replace  them 
with  compound-interest  notes,  leaving  say  $10,000,000  absolutely  with 
drawn;  and  I  wished  to  add  to  the  amount  withdrawn  $10,000,000  a 
month,  of  which  a  part  would  be  replaced  by  the  national  currency  issued 
by  the  national  banks.  In  this  way  I  expected  to  accomplish  a  safe  and 
gradual  reduction  in  the  volume  of  currency,  with  a  view  to  resumption  of 
specie  payments  as  soon  as  practicable  without  too  great  prejudice  to  the 
large  interests  involved.  In  this  anticipation  I  assumed  that  the  legisla 
tion  of  Congress,  though  not  likely  to  cause  any  considerable  reduction  in 
the  State  bank  circulation,  would  at  any  rate  prevent  its  increase. 

"  The  amount  of  liabilities  beyond  all  immediate  provision  for  them  was 
about  $13,000,000  when  I  left  the  Department,  or  if  the  intended  reduction 
of  $10,000,000  should  be  added,  $23,000,000.  To  meet  this  I  advertised 
the  remainder  of  the  $75,000,000  loan  not  already  taken ;  say  $33,000,000, 
fixing  the  minimum  of  premiums  at  which  bids  would  he  accepted,  at  four 
per  cent.,  below  which  previous  offers  had  been  declined.  Some  offers 
under  this  advertisement  had  already  been  made  when  I  resigned,  and  I 
did  not  doubt  that  I  should  obtain  offers  for  the  whole  loan,  if  not  under 
the  advertisement  at  that  time  in  the  papers,  yet  by  subscriptions  or  under 
another  advertisement.  I  would  by  these  means  have  been  enabled  to  clear 
the  table  of  requisitions,  and  would  have  had  ten  millions  left  and  current 
revenue  to  meet  future  demands  for  a  few  days,  until  I  could  arrange  for 
the  disposition  of  the  7-30's  and  10-40's  at  home  and  of  other  bonds 
abroad. 

"  Properly  enough,  my  advertisement  was  withdrawn  after  my  resigna 
tion  ;  and  it  was  my  hope  and  expectation  that  you  would  find  a  better 
resource  than  the  1881's  in  a  loan  of  $50,000,000  from  the  banks;  some  of 
the  leading  managers  of  which,  hostile  to  me  because  of  my  support  of  the 
national  banking  system,  would,  I  hoped  and  thought,  be  likely  to  give 
you  the  benefit  of  their  influence.  My  expectations  were  not,  however, 
realized. 

"  Since  then  you  have  done  what  I  proposed  to  do  in  appealing  to  the 
people  for  subscriptions  to  the  7-30's.  But  as  yet  you  have  not  disposed 
of  any  other  bonds  than  the  10-40's.  It  seems  to  me  that  you  should. 


416  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  The  subscriptions  for  the  7-30's  and  the  10-40's  equal  my  expectation 
under  the  present  plan  of  disposing  of  them.  My  experience  satisfied  me, 
as  I  have  already  said  to  you,  that  the  plan  of  a  general  agency — such  as  I 
adopted  in  procuring  subscriptions  to  the  5-20's — was  much  better  than 
the  plan  of  numerous  agents  (national  banks  and  others  acting  under  them), 
with  supervision  by  the  Treasury  Department  which  I  adopted  in  obtain 
ing  subscriptions  for  the  10-40's,  and  which  is  now  continued  in  regard  to 
/both  7-30's  and  the  10-40's.  I  have  not  forgotten  the  calumnies  for  which 
/  my  employment  of  a  general  agent  was  made  the  occasion,  and  I  confess  it 
was  principally  with  a  view  of  avoiding  these  calumnies  that  I  abandoned 
the  general  agency  system.  But,  being  satisfied  that  it  was  the  best  plan 
for  the  country,  I  had  determined  to  return  to  it  and  disregarded  slander 
and  slanderers.  If  you  think  best  to  adhere  to  the  present  plan,  I  can 
suggest  no  improvement  upon  it ;  unless  it  be  that  your  advertising  agent 
should  be  directed  to  pay  more  attention  to  the  10-40's,  and  that  the  efforts 
of  the  national  banks  and  others  should  be  stimulated  by  larger  rewards. 
I  think  the  present  compensation  is,  or  ought  to  be,  sufficient ;  but  it  is  so 
important  to  raise  money  enough  to  meet  all  demands  promptly,  that  it 
seems  advisable  to  consider  whether  effort  might  not  be  stimulated  by  in 
crease. 

"  When  I  last  saw  you,  we  had  some  talk  about  receiving  certificates  of 
indebtedness  in  payment  for  bonds  in  whole  or  in  part.  I  have  no  doubt 
they  should  be  so  received  rather  than  allow  the  present  depreciation ; 
but  may  not  the  same  end  be  accomplished  without  the  discredit  which 
will  attach  to  their  receipt  for  bonds  ?  Why  not  suspend  all  certificates 
till  the  outstanding  amount  is  reduced  to  proper  limits  —  say  about 
$1 50,000,000  ?  The  reduction  might  be  hastened  by  the  purchase,  through 
a  confidential  agent,  of  a  few  millions.  This  operation,  by  improving  their 
value,  would  greatly  benefit  the  holders,  and  would  at  the  same  time  en 
hance  the  public  credit.  And  if  you  resolve  on  a  reduction  of  the  amount 
of  certificates  through  a  loan,  I  think  the  best  plan  is  to  make  them  re 
ceivable  for  a  limited  time  for  10-40's. 

"  Your  main  reliance  for  funds  must  be  on  the  bonds  of  1881,  the  5-20's, 
the  10-40's,  and  the  7-30's. 

"  It  will,  I  think,  be  well  to  dispose  of  the  $33,000,000  of  the  $75,000,000 
loan  still  undisposed  of;  nor  should  I  hesitate  to  add  to  this  amount  enough 
to  make  the  total  amount  of  1881's  issued  (after  all  exchanges  of  the  old 
7-30's  are  completed)  some  even  number  of  hundreds  of  millions.  These 
bonds  can  be  disposed  of  now,  I  think,  at  a  premium  of  not  less  than 
four  per  cent.  Possibly  more  may  be  obtained. 

"  The  sale  of  the  new  7-30's  and  the  10-40's  should  be  promoted  in  every 
possible  way.  I  have  already  suggested  a  general  agent,  but,  with  or 
without  such  an  agent,  liberal  advertising  and  the  most  liberal  encourage 
ment  to  purchasers  for  resale,  and  to  the  national  banks  acting  as  agents, 
are  important  considerations.  .  .  . 

"From  these  sources  and  by  these  means,  with  fair  measure  of  military 


NECESSITY  OF  TAXATION.  417 

success,  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  Treasury  can  be  supplied  till  the  meeting 
of  Congress.  The  State  banks  must  then  be  induced  to  come  into  the 
national  system,  or  required  to  cease  from  issuing. notes  for  circulation; 
and  such  taxes  must  be  imposed  as  will  bring  the  amount  to  be  raised  by 
loans  within  the  limit  of  the  natural  demand  for  bonds.  Such  legislation 
by  the  last  Congress  would  have  saved  many  millions.  By  the  next  Con 
gress  it  will  be  indispensable  to  the  success  of  the  Treasury.  ..." 

27 


CHAPTEE   XLI. 

ME.   CHASE  AND  THE  WAE — EXTRACTS  FEOM  HIS  LETTEES  AND 

DIAEIES. 

1861. 

To  John  T.  Trowbridge,  Somervittt,  Mass. 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  81,  1864. 

".  .  .  .  "TMMEDIATELY  after  the  organization  of  the  cabinet,  the 
JL  question  of  what  should  be  the  policy  of  the  Government 
toward  the  seceded  States,  demanded  the  most  serious  attention.  Ander 
son,  with  his  little  company  of  soldiers,  was  holding  Fort  Sumter,  and 
the  first  question  was,  "  Shall  lie  be  relieved  ?  "  General  Scott  declared 
that  complete  relief  was  impracticable  with  a  less  force  than  20,000  men. 
He  thought,  however,  that  the  fort  might  be  defended  for  several  months 
if  reenforced  and  provisioned ;  but  that  reinforcements  and  provisioning 
were  impracticable,  as  the  fire  of  the  enemy's  batteries  would  be  concen 
trated  upon  any  vessel  which  might  make  the  attempt,  both  while  enter 
ing  the  harbor,  and  especially  when  endeavoring  to  land  men  and  cargoes 
at  the  fort.  The  President  finally  determined  to  make  the  attempt  to 
send  provisions  to  the  garrison. 

"  Information  that  the  attempt  would  be  made  was  transmitted  to  the 
Governor  of  South  Carolina,  and  its  receipt  was  promptly  followed  by 
an  order  from  the  rebel  authorities  to  reduce  the  fort.  How  this  was 
accomplished  is  historical,  and  it  is  also  historical  how  the  country  was 
aroused  by  the  rebel  guns  which  opened  on  the  fort.  The  call  for 
75,000  men  immediately  followed.  It  soon  became  evident  that  noth 
ing  beyond  the  mere  defense  of  Washington  was  to  be  accomplished 
by  this  force. 

"  I  took  the  liberty  of  urging  upon  General  Scott  to  occupy  Manassas 
and  compel  the  rebels  to  evacuate  Harper's  Ferry  and  the  Valley  of  the 
Shenandoah.  It  has  since  become  evident  that  this  might  have  been  then 
done,  and  it  is  even  probable  that  a  vigorous  use  of  the  force  then  at  the 
disposal  of  the  Government  might  have  driven  the  rebels  from  Richmond. 


GREAT  IRREGULARITIES.  419 

The  action  proposed,  however,  was  thought  to  involve  too  much  risk. 
The  rebels  were  suffered  for  weeks  to  occupy  Alexandria  with  an  insignifi 
cant  force,  to  incite  insurrection  in  Baltimore,  and  to  destroy  the  national 
property  at  Norfolk,  except  that  which  was  destroyed  under  orders  by 
ourselves.  At  last,  after  long  delays,  Baltimore  was  recovered,  Alexan 
dria  was  occupied  by  national  troops,  and  the  rebels  were  driven  from 
Harper's  Ferry.  Meanwhile,  it  had  become  evident  that  the  75,000  men 
originally  called  for  would  be  insufficient.  To  replace  them  I  took  the 
liberty  to  prepare  a  call  for  65,000  volunteers.  This  proposition,  after 
having  been  modified  so  as  to  include  an  increase  of  the  regular  army,  was 
sanctioned  by  the  President,  who,  with  the  consent  of  the  Secretary  of 
War,  directed  me  to  prepare  also  the  necessary  orders.  I  invited  to  my 
assistance  Colonel  Thomas,  Major  Irwin  McDowell,  and  Captain  W.  B. 
Franklin.  After  a  good  deal  of  consideration  the  orders  since  known  as 
Nos.  15  and  16  were  framed ;  one  for  the  enlistment  of  volunteers  and  the 
other  for  regular  regiments.  Major  McDowell  contributed  the  largest 
amount  of  information  and  suggestion,  while  the  other  two  officers  were 
by  no  means  wanting  in  both.  It  was  my  part  to  decide  between  different 
opinions,  and  put  the  whole  in  form. 

"  The  object  I  had  in  view  in  all  this  was — as  there  was  no  law  author 
izing  the  raising  of  the  force  required — to  prepare  to  make  a  regular 
system  and  plan  in  conformity  with  which  all  new  enlistments  should  be 
made  clear  and  intelligible  in  itself,  and  capable  of  being  laid  before 
Congress  in  a  form  which  would  be  likely  to  receive  its  sanction.  These 
orders  were  promulgated  in  May,  1861. 

"  There  were  wide  departures  from  this  plan,  however.  Great  irregu 
larities  prevailed.  Regiments  were  raised  under  verbal  authority  from 
the  President  and  Secretary  of  War,  and  under  written  memoranda  of 
which  no  record  was  preserved.  So  that  the  orders  failed  to  secure  the 
objects  I  had  in  view — beyond  the  simple  provision  of  force — which  were, 
order  and  system,  and  through  these  efficiency  and  accountability. 

"  During  this  time  great  efforts  were  made  in  Kentucky  and  in  Mis 
souri  to  precipitate  those  States  into  rebellion,  and  I  was  called  on  to 
take  a  very  considerable  part  in  the  measures  adopted  to  prevent  their  suc 
cess.  The  President  and  Secretary  of  War,  indeed,  committed  to  me  for  a 
time  the  principal  charge  of  what  related  to  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  and 
I  was  very  active  also  in  promoting  the  measures  deemed  necessary  for 
the  safety  of  Missouri.  When  Rousseau,  then  a  Union  Senator  in  the  Ken 
tucky  Legislature  from  Louisville,  came  to  Washington  to  seek  means  of 
raising  men  for  the  defense  of  the  Union,  I  took  his  matters  in  charge  • 
obtained  for  him  a  colonel's  commission  and  an  order,  which  I  drew  up 
myself,  authorizing  him  to  raise  twenty  companies.  I  was  also  charged 
with  the  care  of  Nelson's  work;  drew  most  of  the  orders  under  which  he 
acted ;  and  provided  the  necessary  means  to  meet  expenses.  So,  also,  I 
was  called  on  to  frame  the  orders  under  which  Andrew  Johnson  was 
authorized  to  raise  regiments  in  Tennessee.  These  duties  brought  me 


420  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

into  intimate  relations  with  those  officers ;  particularly  with  the  first  two. 
They  were  worthy  of  the  confidence  reposed  in  them  by  the  President.  I 
doubt  if  more  valuable  work  has  been  done  with  so  much  activity,  econ 
omy  and  practical  benefit  in  raising  men,  by  almost  any  others.  Nelson's 
movement  into  the  interior  •  of  Kentucky  and  the  establishment  of  the 
Camp  Dick  Robinson,  was  especially  most  opportune.  I  think  that  this 
movement  saved  Kentucky  from  secession.  I  am  quite  sure  that,  without 
the  organization  of  Nelson  and  Rousseau,  the  State  would  not  have  been 
saved  from  that  calamity. 

"  While  he  was  Secretary  of  War,  General  Cameron  conferred  much 
with  me.  I  never  undertook  to  do  any  thing  in  his  department,  except 
when  asked  to  give  my  help,  and  then  I  gave  it  willingly.  In  addition  to 
Western  Border-State  matters,  the  principal  subjects  of  conference  between 
General  Cameron  and  myself  were  slavery  and  the  employment  of  colored 
troops.  We  agreed  very  early  that  the  necessity  of  arming  them  was  in 
evitable  ;  but  we  were  alone  in  that  opinion.  At  least  no  other  member 
of  the  Administration  gave  open  support,  while  the  President  and  Mr. 
Blair,  as  least,  were  decidedly  averse  to  it.  The  question  of  the  employ 
ment  of  the  colored  people  who  sought  refuge  within  our  lines  soon  be 
came  one  of  practical  importance.  General  Butler  wrote  from  Fortress 
Monroe  in  May,  1861,  asking  what  disposition  should  be  made  of  such 
persons.  The  Secretary  of  War  conferred  with  me,  and  I  submitted  my 
suggestions  to  him  in  the  form  of  a  letter,  which  he  adopted  with  some 
slight  modification.  General  Butler  wrote  again  in  July,  and  being  again 
consulted,  I  again  submitted  suggestions  which  were  adopted.  In  the 
first  of  these  letters,  General  Butler  was  directed  to  refrain  from  surren 
dering  alleged  fugitives  from  service  to  alleged  masters.  In  the  second 
he  was  directed  to  employ  them  under  such  organizations  and  in  such 
occupations  as  circumstances  might  suggest  or  require. 

"  It  will  be  observed  by  the  reader  of  those  letters  that  at  the  time  they 
were  written  it  was  expected  the  rebellion  would  be  suppressed  without  any 
radical  interference  with  the  domestic  institutions  or  internal  affairs  of  any 
State,  and  that  the  directions  to  General  Butler  contemplated  only  such 
measures  as  seemed  then  necessary  to  suppression.  He  was  not  to  inter 
fere  with  laborers  whether  slaves  or  free,  in  houses  or  on  farms.  He  was 
to  receive  only,  such  as  came  to  him,  and,  regarding  all  laws  for  reclama 
tion  as  temporarily  suspended,  was  to  employ  them  in  the  service  of  the 
United  States,  keeping  such  accounts  as  would  enable  loyal  owners  to 
seek  compensation  from  Congress.  ..." 

To  Alphonso  Taft,  Cincinnati. 

"WASHINGTON,  April  20, 1961. 

"  ....  To  correct  misapprehensions,  except  by  acts,  is  an  almost  vain 
endeavor.  You  may  say,  however,  to  all  whom  it  may  concern,  that 
there  is  no  ground  for  the  ascription  to  me  by  Major  Brown  of  the  senti 
ment  to  which  you  allude. 


TWO  ALTERNATIVES.  421 

"  True  it  is  that  before  the  assault  on  Fort  Sumter,  in  anticipation  of 
an  attempt  to  provision  famishing  soldiers  of  the  Union,  I  was  decidedly 
in  favor  of  a  positive  policy  and  against  the  notion  of  drifting — the  Mi- 
cawber-like  policy  of  waiting  for  something  to  turn  up. 

"  As  a  positive  policy  two  alternatives  were  plainly  before  us  :  1.  That 
of  enforcing  the  laws  of  the  Union  by  its  whole  power  and  through  its 
whole  extent ;  or,  2.  That  of  recognizing  the  organization  of  actual  gov 
ernment  by  the  seven  seceded  States  as  an  accomplished  revolution — ac 
complished  through  the  complicity  of  the  late  Administration,  and  letting 
that  Confederacy  try  its  experiment  of  separation ;  but  maintaining  the 
authority  of  the  Union  and  treating  secession  as  treason  everywhere  else. 

"  Knowing  that  the  former  of  these  alternatives  involved  destructive 
war  and  vast  expenditure  and  oppressive  debt,  and  thinking  it  possible 
that  through  the  latter  these  great  evils  might  be  avoided,  and  the  union 
of  the  other  States  preserved  unbroken ;  the  return  even  of  the  seceded 
States,  after  an  unsatisfactory  experiment  of  separation  secured ;  and  the 
great  cause  of  freedom  and  constitutional  government  peacefully  vindicated 
— thinking,  I  say,  these  things  possible,  I  preferred  the  latter  alternative. 

"  The  attack  on  Fort  Sumter  and  the  precipitation  of  Virginia  into 
hostility  to  the  national  Government,  made  this  latter  alternative  imprac 
ticable,  and  I  had  then  no  hesitation  about  recurring  to  the  former.  Of 
course  I  insist  on  the  most  vigorous  measures,  not  merely  for  the  preserva 
tion  of  the  Union  and  the  defense  of  the  Government,  but  for  the  consti 
tutional  ree"stablishment  of  both  throughout  the  land. 

"In  laboring  for  these  objects  I  know  hardly  the  least  cessation,  and  be 
gin  to  feel  the  wear  as  well  as  the  strain  of  them.  When  my  criticisers 
equal  me  in  labor  and  zeal,  I  shall  more  cheerfully  listen  to  their  criti 
cisms.  ..." 

To  Dr.  William  Wirt,  Richmond. 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  10, 1861. 

"  ....  A  friend  has  placed  in  my  hands  a  number  of  the  Baltimore 
Exchange  of  the  7th  inst.,  containing  an  article  from  the  Richmond  Dis 
patch  which  purports  to  give  an  account  of  the  conversation  between  us, 
to  which  you  refer  in  yours  received  last  Friday. 

"  The  article  is  very  far  from  a  correct  statement  of  what  was  said.  A 
great  deal  essential  to  any  true  understanding  of  the  conversation  is 
omitted,  and  what  is  stated  is  so  stated  as  to  convey  a  totally  erroneous 
idea  of  its  spirit  and  substance. 

"  You  called  on  me,  and  I  welcomed  you  as  a  friend — as  a  former  pupil 
— as  a  son  of  William  Wirt,  my  friend  and  instructor  in  other  days — as  a 
member  of  a  family  for  every  individual  of  which  I  have  long  cherished 
the  warmest  regard.  I  understood  you  also  to  be  a  friend  of  the  Union, 
although  earnest  in  maintaining  what  you  believed  to  be  the  rights  of  the 
slave  States.  The  Peace  Conference  was  in  session,  and  I  was  a  member 
deeply  interested  in  the  objects  of  its  discussions. 


422         LITE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  Naturally,  therefore, 'our  conversation  was  very  free ;  and  just  as  nat 
urally  it  turned  to  the  existing  state  of  the  country;  not,  however,  as 
stated  in  the  article,  with  reference  to  any  connection  I  might  have  with 
the  incoming  Administration,  for  I  did  not  then  expect  and  I  never  wished 
to  be  charged  with  a  department ;  but  with  reference  simply  to  matters 
before  the  convention  and  their  relation  to  the  general  condition  of  the 
country. 

"  What  I  chiefly  desired  to  impress  on  your  mind  was  the  anxiety  deep 
ly  felt  by  me,  in  common  with  all  patriotic  citizens,  for  a  peaceful  solution 
of  existing  difficulties.  This  solution,  I  suggested,  might  be  found  in  the 
organization  of  Territories  without  any  mention  of  the  subject  of  slavery, 
one  way  or  the  other,  in  the  organic  acts,  and  in  a  legislative  provision  for 
compensation  for  fugitives  from  service,  in  lieu  of  extradition — an  arrange 
ment  likely,  as  I  thought,  to  prove  more  beneficial  to  the  slave  States,  and 
more  acceptable  to  the  free,  than  the  existing  law.  If  legislative  solution 
in  this  or  some  similar  way  should  be  found  impracticable,  I  suggested 
a  National  Convention  to  prepare  amendments  of  the  Constitution  as  the 
best  means  of  composing  present  troubles,  or,  in  the  deplorable  contin 
gency  of  impossible  adjustment,  of  providing  for  peaceful  separation. 

"  You,  on  your  part,  expressed  great  solicitude  that  no  attempt  should  be 
made  to  reenforce  Fort  Sumter,  and  stated  your  conviction  that  any  such 
attempt  would  impair  the  Union  sentiment  in  the  South,  and  lead  many 
Union  men  to  make  common  cause  with  the  secessionists. 

"  In  reply  to  observations  of  this  nature,  I  expressed  my  confidence  that 
nothing  would  be  willingly  done  to  weaken  the  cause  of  the  Union  in  the 
Southern  States ;  but  observed,  further,  that  I  did  not  see  how  the  Presi 
dent  could  be  absolved  from  his  oath  to  defend  the  Constitution  and  exe 
cute  the  law,  which  seemed  to  bind  him  to  support  Major  Anderson  in  the 
position  his  duty  had  required  him  to  take. 

"  This  led  to  a  discussion  of  the  possibility  of  war  from  this  and  other 
causes,  and  of  its  possible  issues.  We  both  deprecated  such  a  conflict  and 
with  equal  earnestness.  As  arguments  against  it,  I  urged  that,  even  in  the 
event  of  a  complete  combination  of  all  the  slaveholding  States  against  the 
Federal  Government,  a  population  of  eleven  millions,  of  which  four  mill 
ions  were  slaves,  could  hardly  hope  to  contend  successfully  against  a  popu 
lation  of  twenty  millions,  with  no  such  incumbrance ;  that  a  civil  war  must 
almost  inevitably  lead  to  servile  war ;  that  the  institution  of  slavery  could 
not  stand  the  shock  of  such  a  conflict ;  and  that,  even  if  the  institution 
should  survive,  and  a  separation  of  the  States  should  be  thus  accomplished 
through  violence,  still,  after  all,  the  slave  States  could  by  no  possibility  be 
more  secure,  or  find  better  guarantees  for  the  security  of  slavery,  in  a  sepa 
rate  confederacy  than  in  the  Union. 

"  How  different  all  this  from  the  spirit  attributed  to  me  in  the  article 
is  apparent  enough.  Nor  was  the  actual  character  of  your  part  in  the  con 
versation  less  different  from  that  attributed  to  you. 

"  For  example,  you  are  represented  as  saying  to  me  in  a  certain  con- 


MISREPRESENTATIONS.  423 

nection,  *  What  is  your  object  ? '  and  I  am  represented  as  replying,  *  To  free 
the  slave,  who  is  the  cause  of  the  war.'  No  such  question  was  put  to  me, 
in  any  connection,  leading  to  such  a  reply,  and  no  such  reply  was  made  by 
me  to  any  question  whatever.  Again,  it  is  represented  that  you  asked  me 
if  I  *  expected  the  slave  States  to  return  to  the  Union  after  their  homes 
had  been  threatened  and  their  country  devastated,'  and  that  I  answered : 
4  We  do  not  want  them  to  return.  If  the  slave  States  remain  in  the  Union, 
they  will  have  to  be  satisfied  with  much  less  than  they  are  now  demand^ 
ing.'  This  statement,  too,  conveys  a  totally  erroneous  idea  of  wThat  was 
said.  I  do  not  remember  your  language  or  my  own ;  but  I  remember  very- 
well  that  what  I  said  about  terms  of  remaining  in  the  Union  had  reference 
to  the  demand  made  in  the  Peace  Conference  of  a  new  constitutional  sanc 
tion  and  guarantee  of  slavery  in  national  Territories,  of  which  I  remarked 
that  the  slave  States  would  have  to  be  satisfied  with  less  than  that.  Again, 
what  was  said  about  peonage,  compensated  labor,  and  colonization,  had 
no  reference,  such  as  the  article  makes  it  have,  to  liberation  through  civil 
or  servile  war ;  but  to  emancipation,  possible  at  some  future  time,  through 
gradual  improvement  of  the  slave  population  and  the  voluntary  action  of 
the  slave  States — just  such  emancipation  as  Jefferson,  your  own  honored 
father,  and  other  illustrious  statesmen,  formerly  anticipated,  and  some 
Southern  patriots  and  philanthropists,  I  believe,  yet  anticipate. 

"  This  is  enough.  If  you  derived  any  such  impressions  of  me  or  my 
views  as  this  article  indicates  from  our  conversation,  I  sincerely  regret  it. 
It  was  a  frank,  unstudied,  unguarded  talk  between  old  friends  of  differing 
opinions.  Misconception  was,  of  course,  possible.  Certainly  what  I  said 
was  greatly  misconceived,  if  you  think  it  warranted  any  such  statement  as 
that  which  has,  unfortunately,  injuriously,  and,  I  am  sure,  without  your 
agency,  found  its  way  into  the  public  prints. 

"  I  wish  no  ill  to  the  slave  States  ;  but  rather  all  good.  For  Virginia 
and  Maryland  the  circumstances  of  my  earlier  manhood  inspired  in  me  the 
interest  of  a  sincere  attachment.  More  than  any  State,  however,  I  love 
the  Union  our  fathers  made.  In  the  Union,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  the 
rights  of  every  State  and  of  every  citizen  shall  be  scrupulously  respected. 
Through  no  conscious  agency  of  mine  shall  harm  come  to  the  republic. 
Let  the  remembrance  of  your  father's  example  prompt  you,  my  dear  sir, 
to  a  generous  interpretation  of  the  motives  of  those  who  think  otherwise 
than  yourself,  and  inspire  in  you  a  sincere  desire  to  allay  rather  than  stim 
ulate  passion,  and  to  reconcile  rather  than  exasperate  the  differences  which 
have  disturbed  the  tranquillity  of  the  country  and  endangered  the  perma 
nence  of  the  Union.  ..." 

To  the  President. 

"WASHINGTON,  March  16, 1861. 

"  .  .  .  .  The  following  question  was  submitted  for  my  consideration  by 
your  note  of  yesterday  : 

"  *  Assuming  it  to  be  possible  to  now  provision  Fort  Sumter,  is  it,  under 
all  the  circumstances,  wise  to  attempt  it  ? ' 


424  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  I  have  given  to  this  question  all  the  reflection  which  the  engrossing 
duties  of  this  Department  have  allowed. 

"  A  correct  solution  must  depend,  in  my  judgment,  on  the  degree  of 
possibility  likely  to  attend  upon  the  attempt ;  on  the  combination  of  re- 
enforcement  with  provisioning,  and  on  the  probable  effects  of  the  measure 
on  the  relations  of  the  disaffected  States  toward  the  national  Government. 

"  I  shall  assume  what  the  statements  of  the  officers  consulted  seem  to 
warrant ;  that  the  possibility  of  success  amounts  to  a  reasonable  degree  of 
probability ;  and  that  the  attempt  to  provision  is  to  include  an  attempt  to 
reenforce :  for  it  seems  to  be  generally  agreed  that  to  provision  without 
reinforcement  will  accomplish  no  substantially  beneficial  purpose. 

"  The  probable  political  effects  of  the  measure  allow  room  for  much 
fair  difference  of  opinion,  and  I  have  not  reached  my  own  conclusion  with 
out  much  difficulty.  If  the  proposed  enterprise  will  so  influence  civil  war 
as  to  involve  an  immediate  necessity  for  the  enlistment  of  armies  and  the 
expenditure  of  millions,  I  cannot,  in  the  existing  circumstances  of  the 
country  and  in  the  present  condition  of  the  national  finances,  advise  it. 
But  it  seems  to  me  highly  improbable  that  the  attempt,  if  accompanied  or 
immediately  followed  by  a  proclamation,  setting  forth  a  liberal  and  gen 
erous  though  firm  policy  toward  the  disaffected  States,  in  accordance 
with  the  principles  of  the  inaugural  address,  will  produce  such  conse 
quences  ;  while  it  cannot  be  doubted  that,  in  maintaining  a  fort  belonging 
to  the  United  States,  and  in  supporting  the  officers  and  men  engaged,  in 
the  regular  course  of  service,  in  its  defense,  the  Federal  Government  ex 
ercises  a  clear  right,  and  under  all  ordinary  circumstances  discharges  a 
plain  duty.  I  therefore  return  an  affirmative  answer  to  the  question  sub 
mitted  to  me.  ..." 

To  tTie  President. 

"  WASHINGTON,  April  25, 1861. 

"  .  .  .  .  Let  me  beg  you  to  remember  that  the  disunionists  have  an 
ticipated  us  in  every  thing,  and  that  as  yet  we  have  accomplished  nothing 
but  the  destruction  of  our  own  property. 

"  Let  me  beg  you  to  remember,  also,  that  it  has  been  a  darling  object 
with  the  disunionists  to  secure  the  passage  of  a  secession  ordinance  by 
Maryland. 

"  The  passage  of  that  ordinance  will  be  the  signal  for  the  entry  of  dis 
union  forces  into  Maryland.  It  will  give  a  color  of  law  and  regularity  to' 
rebellion,  and  thereby  triple  its  strength.  The  custom-house  in  Balti 
more  will  be  seized,  and  Fort  McHenry  attacked— perhaps  taken.  What 
next? 

"  Do  not,  I  pray  you,  let  this  new  success  of  treason  be  inaugurated  in 
the  presence  of  American  troops.  Save  us  from  this  new  humiliation. 

"  A  word  to  the  brave  old  commanding  general  will  do  the  work  of 
prevention.  You,  alone,  can  give  the  word.  ..." 


KENTUCKY  AND  WEST  VIRGINIA.  425 

To  George  D.  Prentice,  Louisville,  Kentucky. 

"  WASHINGTON,  May  29, 1861. 

"  ....  It  seems  indispensable  that  supplies  to  the  rebels  from  Louis 
ville  shall  cease.  The  unavoidable  alternative  is  suspension  of  intercourse 
with  Louisville  from  other  loyal  States.  I  have  been,  and  am,  exceedingly 
anxious  so  to  administer  this  Department  as  to  aid,  and  not  hinder,  the 
success  of  the  Union  men  in  Kentucky.  With  this  view,  and  in  compli 
ance  with  suggestions  from  prominent  Union  men,  I  have  delayed  requir 
ing  the  enforcement  of  the  order  prohibiting  supplies  to  insurgents.  It 
now  seems  certain  that  longer  delay  will  work  more  mischief  than  good. 
The  military  authorities  have  prohibited  these  supplies,  and  the  civil  must 
necessarily  act  in  the  same  direction.  I  hear  that  Colonel  Anderson  has 
been  ordered  to  Louisville,  and  that  he  has  been  instructed  to  support  the 
collector  in  preventing  the  sending  forward  of  these  supplies.  It  is  ex 
ceedingly  important,  as  it  seems  to  me,  that  the  cessation  of  these  supplies 
shall  appear  to  be  the  voluntary  act  of  the  people  of  Louisville,  in  refusing 
further  aid,  direct  or  indirect,  to  the  insurgents,  rather  than  a  reluctant 
obedience  to  Federal  authority.  ..." 

To  John  8.  Carlisle,  Wheeling,  Virginia. 

"  WASHINGTON,  June  10, 1861. 

"  .  .  .  .  Your  dispatch  is  just  received,  and  was  answered  as  clearly  as 
the  brevity  of  the  telegraph  allows.  Yours  was  charged  at  thirty  dollars. 

"  You  seem  to  think  that  some  order  heretofore  given  is  reversed,  or 
may  be.  This  is  a  mistake.  The  purpose  of  the  Administration  to  give 
full  support  to  the  Union  men  in  the  border  States,  as  well  as  in  the  States 
farther  South,  is  entirely  unchanged.  It  is  desirable,  of  course,  to  enlist 
as  many  men  as  you  can  for  three  years,  and  without  limit  as  to  space  of 
service ;  but  it  is  certainly  wise  to  enlist  other  regiments,  if  an  adeqaate 
number  of  three-years'  men  cannot  be  had.  Men  enlisted  for  local  service, 
however,  should  be  organized  rather  as  home-guards  than  as  regular 
troops,  and  should  not  expect  the  same  equipment  or  pay  as  three-years' 
men.  At  all  events,  they  should  be  taken  only  for  a  limited  period,  say 
three  months. 

"  If  you  can  raise  five  thousand  men,  as  you  anticipate,  they  will  all  be 
accepted ;  and  until  Congress  shall  make  some  general  provision  by  law, 
they  will  be  sustained  just  as  the  troops  in  joint  lines  have  been,  whether 
they  are  organized  for  local  service  only,  or  for  general  service  without 
restriction. 

"  Full  confidence  is  reposed  in  your  discretion,  and  that  of  those  who 
act  with  you.  •  You  are  on  the  spot,  and  must  know  what  is  best  to  be 
done.  Do  it. 

"Will  not  your  Legislature  make  some  provision  for  arming  the  State, 
in  concert  with  the  General  Government  ?  .  .  " 


426  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

To  Hon.  James  Guthrie,  Louisville,  Kentucky. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  13,  1861. 

"  .  .  .  .  Your  note  of  the  10th,  by  Hon.  Thomas  M.  Key,  was  duly  re 
ceived.  I  had  already  gathered,  from  other  sources,  most  of  the  facts  and 
views  which  he  communicated.  No  doubt  has  existed  in  my  mind  of  the 
inexpediency  of  sending  Federal  troops  into  Kentucky,  except  upon  the 
call  of  the  Union  men  of  that  State.  I  may  say  to  you,  that  it  was  at  my 
instance  that  General  Scott  telegraphed  to  General  McClellan  not  to 
send  into  Kentucky  any  soldiers  not  native  residents  of  the  State. 

"  It  is  my  wish  that  the  whole  action  of  the  national  Administration 
may  be  directed  in  aid  of  the  Union  men  of  Kentucky.  Of  the  mode  in 
which  that  aid  can  be  rendered,  they  must,  in  general,  be  the  best  judges, 
and,  of  course,  great  deference  should  be  paid  to  their  well-considered 
wishes. 

"  Permit  me  to  express  my  regret  that  the  Treasury  order  of  the  2d  of 
May,  designed  to  prevent  the  sending  of  supplies  to  persons  in  actual  re 
bellion  against  the  Union,  and  to  States  under  their  control,  remained  for 
a  long  time  unexecuted  at  Louisville,  and  is,  as  I  am  advised,  only  par 
tially  executed  now.  While  the  Administration  desires  to  cooperate, 
frankly  and  cordially,  with  the  Union  men  of  Kentucky,  it  certainly  has  a 
right  to  expect  frank  and  cordial  cooperation  from  them. 

"  Nothing  can  be  plainer,  I  apprehend,  than  the  right  and  duty  of  the 
Administration  to  prevent  the  sending  of  supplies  of  every  description 
whatever,  to  insurgents,  and  to  States  under  the  control  of  insurgents. 
Such  States  are  worse  then  belligerent — they  are  disloyally  belligerent. 
And  while  it  is  doubtless  desirable  to  afford  to  loyal  men  in  those  States 
all  possible  support,  the  fast  possible  support  seems  to  be  that  complete 
non-intercourse  which  a  state  of  hostility  warrants  and  demands,  and 
which  is  likeliest  to  bring  the  disloyal  to  reason.  ..." 

To  the  Secretary  of  War. 

"  WASHINGTON,  June  19, 1861. 

"  ....  In  the  Intelligencer  of  this  morning  I  see  a  statement  that  the 
East  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  has  made  an  offer,  which,  has  leen  ac 
cepted,  to  receive  Government  bonds  in  payment  for  transportation.  That 
such  an  offer  has  been  made  is  probable  enough,  but  that  it  has  been  ac 
cepted,  without  consulting  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  can  hardly  be 
correct.  There  is  no  warrant  of  law  for  such  contracts.  If  made,  they 
must  cause  a  rapid  depreciation  of  Government  securities  and  greatly  in 
crease  our  financial  embarrassment. 

"  It  is  desirable,  doubtless,  for  the  next  sixty  days,  to  use  a  considerable 
amount  of  Treasury  notes,  in  payment  of  large  contracts.  But  this  must 
be  done  cautiously  and  without  publicity,  and  only  in  the  largest  contracts. 
It  is  a  dangerous  experiment  for  a  government  to  pay  in  any  thing  but 
money." 


FRIENDSHIP  FOR  GENERAL  McCLELLAN.  437 

To  General  Gevrge  B.  McClellan. 

"WASHINGTON,  July  7,  18C1. 

"  .  .  .  .  Though  I  believe  we  have  never  met,  I  somehow  feel  as  if  we 
were  personal  friends.  Your  being  called  to  the  command  of  the  Ohio 
troops  inspired  the  first  strong  interest  I  felt  in  you.  I  could  not  help  feel 
ing  deeply  interested  in  one  so  connected  with  men  and  a  State  to  which  I 
was  bound  by  so  many  close  and  tender  ties.  Then  the  accounts  I  heard 
of  your  character  and  qualities,  from  those  who  knew  you,  and  the  reports 
of  your  policy  and  action  that  came  from  Ohio,  and  especially  the  close 
study  which,  under  the  circumstances,  I  naturally  gave  to  your  dispatches 
to  the  noble  old  commanding  general,  from  whom  I  sometimes  differ  but 
whom  I  always  revere,  confirmed  that  interest  and  mingled  with  it  respect 
and  confidence.  /In  the  result  the  country  was  indebted  to  me — may  I  say 
it  without  too  much  vanity? — in  some  considerable  degree,  for  the  change 
of  your  commission  from  Ohio  into  a  commission  of  major-general  of  the 
army  of  the  Union,  and  your  assignment  to  the  command  of  the  Depart 
ment  of  the  Ohio.  I  drew  with  my  own  hand  the  order  extending  it  into 
Virginia.  /" 

"  These"  things  may  not  be  unknown  to  you.  I  refer  to  them  now,  in 
order  that,  if  they  happen  to  be  unknown,  you  may  the  better  understand 
the  motives  which  dictate  this  letter. 

"  Major-General  Fremont  has  been  assigned  to  the  command  of  the  De 
partment  embracing  Illinois  and  the  States  between  the  Mississippi  and 
the  Rocky  Mountains.  It  was  my  wish  that  you  should  remain  in  com 
mand  on  the  Mississippi,  but  in  this  I  was  overruled.  I  regret  it  the  less, 
because,  while  I  regard  both  departments  as  great  fields  of  usefulness  and 
honor,  I  look  upon  that  which  must  embrace  all  the  operations  in  Ken 
tucky  and  Eastern  Tennessee,  and  so  downward  to  the  Gulf,  as  greatly  the 
most  important.  A  separate  department  was  some  time  ago  created  of  the 
whole  or  a  part  of  Kentucky,  and  the  command  given  to  General — then 
Colonel — Anderson.  I  wish  this  department  and  Tennessee  now  to  be 
included  in  yours,  and  think  both  will  be. 

"Your  letter  has  inspired  in  me  the  greatest  hope  that  by  this  time  you 
have  achieved  important  advantages  over  the  rebels,  and  that  you  will 
soon  clear  Western  Virginia  of  them.  You  will  then  be  left  free  for  the 
operations  which  I  regard  as  the  most  important.  To  prepare  for  them, 
an  order  has  been  made  after  consultation  with  Senator  Johnson,  Lieuten 
ant  Nelson,  Mr.  Green  Adams,  and  others,  authorizing  Lieutenant  Nelson  to 
raise  six  regiments  in  Tennessee,  and  three  in  Kentucky,  in  addition  to  the 
two  which  Colonel  Rousseau  had  been  previously  authorized  to  raise  at 
and  near  Louisville.  Lieutenant  Nelson  is  known  to  you.  He  is  a  man  of 
energy  and  of  various  talent.  I  believe  he  will  execute  his  commission 
well.  Mr.  Adams,  who  formerly  represented  the  district  comprising  many 
of  the  counties  of  Southeast  Kentucky,  is  now  at  the  head  of  a  bureau  in 
my  department.  He  has  gone  West  to-day  to  prepare  for  rapid  enlist- 


428  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

merit.  Lieutenant  Nelson  will  follow  as  soon  as  arms  and  guns  can  be  sent 
forward ;  and  will,  I  hope,  be  able  to  see  you  iu  person,  bearing  this  letter. 

"  You  can  very  materially  forward  these  preparations  by  your  counsel 
and  cooperation:  and  just  as  soon  as  circumstances  will  allow,  you  can 
yourself  take  the  open  command  of  the  regiments,  and,  with  your  Ohio 
and  Indiana  men,  march  down  through  the  mountain-region,  deliver  the 
whole  of  it,  including  the  mountain  districts  of  North  Carolina,  Georgia, 
and  Alabama,  from  the  insurrection,  and  then  reach  the  Gulf  at  Mobile 
and  New  Orleans,  thus  cutting  the  rebellion  in  two. 

"  This,  in  my  view,  is,  among  the  important  lines  of  movement,  the 
most  important,  and  offers  the  best  theatre  for  political  and  military  genius. 
I  think  Fremont  could  have  acted  well  the  part  it  requires,  had  your  depart 
ment  continued  to  extend  across  the  Mississippi.  I  am  sure  you  can  act  it 
well,  and  I  beg  you  to  give  it  your  most  careful  thought. 

"  Perhaps  you  will  laugh  at  all  this,  and  ask,  '  "What  does  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  so  far  from  the  money-bags  ? '  Perhaps  you  will  laugh 
with  reason,  and  what  I  have  written  may  very  possibly  deserve  to  be 
classed  with  the  crudities  with  which  all  brains  are  rife.  But  to  offer  my 
ideas  to  your  consideration  can  do  no  harm ;  and  I  shall  receive  with  per 
fect  docility  the  corrections  of  your  better  judgment.  ..." 

To  Green  Adams,  of  Kentucky. 

"  WASHINGTON,  September  5, 1861. 

"  .  .  .  .  While  the  rebels  do  not  hesitate  to  confiscate  any  Union  man's 
property  of  whatever  description,  certainly  no  great  complaint  can  be  made 
if  slaves  are  not  recognized  as  the  property  of  rebels,  when  employed  in  hos 
tility  to  the  Union  and  in  promoting  that  very  confiscation.  I  am  sure  the 
President  does  not  go  beyond,  nor  intended  to  go  beyond,  the  action  of  Con 
gress.  Indeed,  I  know  that  the  President  had  some  difficulty  in  consenting 
to  approve  the  act  of  Congress  on  the  subject,  fearing  that  it  might  be  con 
strued  into  favor  to  some  such  purpose  as  that  supposed  to  be  countenanced 
by  Fremont's  proclamation ;  and  I  am  sure  that  neither  the  President  nor 
any  member  of  his  Administration  has  any  desire  to  convert  this  war  for  the 
Union  and  for  national  existence,  in  the  Union  and  under  the  Constitution, 
into  a  war  upon  any  State  institution.  It  is  their  wish  to  leave  slavery  to  the 
disposition  of  the  States  in  which  it  exists  in  good  faith.  We  all  see,  how 
ever,  that  the  madness  of  disunion  and  treason  against  the  Government  en« 
dangers  the  system  of  slavery.  It  is  impossible  that  a  civil  war  should  go  on 
between  the  slaveholders,  as  a  class,  controlling  the  action  of  certain  States, 
and  the  Union,  without  harm  to  slavery,  whatever  may  be  the  result  of  the 
war.  I  might  very  well  go  further,  and  express  the  opinion,  without  much 
risk  of  its  confutation  by  events,  that  should  this  war  be  prolonged,  as  ifc 
will  be  if  secession  should  get  the  upper  hand  in  Kentucky,  a  fatal  result 
to  slavery  will  be  welmigh  inevitable.  But  the  Government  is  seeking 
no  such  result.  That  result,  if  it  comes  at  all,  will  come  through  the  folly 


THE  WAR  IN  KENTUCKY.  429 

of  insurrectionary  disunion.  .  .  .  Meantime  the  practical  action  of  the 
Government  will  be  that  indicated  by  Cameron's  letter  to  Butler.  Fugi 
tives  from  States  in  insurrection  will  be  received  into  the  Federal  service 
under  such  organizations  and  in  such  employments  as  may  be  found  expe 
dient  ;  and,  at  the  end  of  the  war,  will  be  properly  provided  for  in  some 
way  reconciling  the  freedom  of  these  persons  with  the  general  good,  while 
loyal  masters  will  be  compensated,  and  rebel  masters  will  be  allowed  to 
reap  the  just  fruit  of  rebellion.  ..." 

To  Brigadier-  General  W.  T.  Sherman,  Cincinnati. 

"  WASHINGTON,  September  17, 1861. 

"  .  .  .  .  Your  telegram  was  received  and  has  been  laid  before  the 
President.  He  supposes  that  fully  5,000  men,  armed,  are  in  camp  at  Cin 
cinnati  ;  that  2,000  (Rousseau's)  are  at  Louisville ;  and  a  report  from  Gen 
eral  Fremont  advises  him  that  12,000  are  at  Paducah.  This  exceeds  your 
demand. 

"  I  have  just  heard,  to  my  surprise,  that  five  regiments  from  Fremont's 
command  have  been  ordered  here.  You  know  that,  before  you  left,  an 
attack  was  apprehended,  and  the  expectation  has  gained  strength  since. 
General  McClellan  desires  to  be  strong  enough  not  merely  to  repel  but  to 
advance.  Still,  I  regret  the  order  for  Fremont's  men.  It  will,  I  fear,  have 
a  bad  effect. 

"  Commissions  for  Nelson  as  brigadier,  and  for  Bramlette,  Fry,  Ger- 
rard,  and  Wolford,  colonels,  have  been  sent  to  General  Anderson,  to  be  for 
warded  to  Camp  Dick  Robinson.  I  hope  they  will  come  safely  and  go 
forward  promptly.  It  is  high  time  that  Nelson's  force  was  fully  organized. 

"  Four  thousand  stand  of  arms  have  been  ordered  forward,  which,  I 
presume,  will  be  in  Cincinnati  before  this  reaches  you.  I  shall  exert  my 
self  to  have  more  sent.  Whatever  I  can  do  I  will  willingly  do  to  sustain 
you  all.  The  loyalty  of  Kentucky  is  a  great  point  gained. — Please  send  for 
the  collector  at  Louisville  and  the  Treasury  Special  Agent,  Mr.  Mellen,  or 
Mr.  Gallagher,  special  agent  on  the  Mississippi,  if  now  in  Louisville,  and 
confer  with  them  about  shipments  to  the  South.  ..." 

To  Brigadier-  General  William  Nelson,  Louisville. 

"  WASHINGTON,  September  18, 1861. 

"  .  .  .  .  Yours  of  the  12th  is  just  received.  I  congratulate  you  most 
heartily  on  the  good  results  of  your  energy  and  wisdom,  which  have  given 
room  for  patriotism  to  work  upon ;  and  I  rejoice  in  thinking  that  my  coun 
sels  and  labors  have  done  somewhat  to  place  and  keep  you  in  position — 
you  and  Rousseau — while  I  have  also,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  promoted 
every  measure  for  the  good  of  Kentucky. 

"  I  will  go  to  the  War  Department  at  once  on  the  subject  of  your  wants, 
and  do  all  I  can  to  urge  the  department  to  action.  As  to  money,  it  shall 
be  forthcoming  as  soon  as  the  proper  papers  can  be  signed. 


430  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  You  will  find  in  Sherman  a  man  of  energy,  of  wisdom,  and  of  cour 
age—a  fit  helpmeet  for  you.  I  have  asked  him  to  counsel  and  cooperate 
with  you ;  you  too  must  cooperate  to  support  Anderson,  who  is  also  true 
and  brave,  but  in  such  health  that  he  needs  the  cooperation  and  friend 
ship  of  such  men  as  Sherman  and  yourself. 

"  May  God  protect  and  prosper  you  !  .  .  . " 

To  William  Gray,  Esq.,  of  Boston. 

"  WASHINGTON ,  September  18,  1S61. 

"  .  .  .  .  Your  note,  just  received,  somewhat  saddens  me,  though  I  sel- 
doih  allow  myself  to  take  sombre  views.  I  wish  exceedingly  that  every 
department  of  Government  could  have  the  entire  confidence  of  the  people, 
but  I  fear  that,  should  the  desired  change  be  made,  the  Horatian  line 
would  apply  to  the  new  incumbent : 

"  Mutato  nomine, 
De  te  fabula  narratur." 

u  Who  is  sufficient  for  the  great  work  of  the  War  Department  ?  I  see 
and  deplore  its  defective  organization,  but  when  I  look  round  and  ask  my 
self,  '  Who  will  bring  to  this  great  work  the  needed  ability,  or  indeed  more 
ability  and  fidelity,  than  its  present  head  ? '  I  confess  myself  perplexed. 
General  Cameron,  as  I  know,  wishes  to  resign  and  go  abroad.  But  who 
is  the  man  for  his  place  ?  (Please  regard  these  last  two  sentences  as  confi 
dential).  ..." 

To  Larz  Anderson.  Cincinnati. 


"WASHINGTON,  October  2,  1S61. 

"  All  I  can  do  to  aid  your  noble-hearted  brother  shall  be  done.  I 
would  it  were  in  my  power  to  do  more ;  my  sympathies  are  all  with  him. 
But  you  can  form  no  idea  of  the  embarrassments  which  surround  me.  My 
labors  are  incessant,  and  my  perplexities  nearly  overwhelm  me. 

"  The  expenditures  everywhere  are  frightful.  In  every  State  men  are 
raised,  armed  and  equipped,  provisioned,  and  transported,  almost  without 
reference  to  the  General  Government.  This  involves  separate  staff-adju 
tants,  quartermasters,  and  commissaries,  of  State  appointment,  every 
where.  In  general  these  State  officers  seem  to  me  to  do  their  duty  quite 
as  well  as  could  be  expected  ;  but  the  connection  between  them  and  the 
Federal  officers  here  is  not  sufficiently  well  established  to  enable  the  Ad 
ministration  to  know  what  is  to  be  provided,  or  where,  or  what  the  ag 
gregate  of  expenditures  during  any  given  time  is,  or  is  likely  to  be. 

u  Then  every  army  and  detachment  is  continually  spending  money — 
some  rashly  and  profusely ;  others  prudently  and  economically. 

"  We  do  not  know  what  troops  have  been  brought  into  service,  or 
what  have  been  raised,  or  are  likely  to  be  raised,  in  the  different  States. 

"  The  average  daily  drafts  on  the  Treasury  for  two  weeks  past  have 


THE  COST  OF  WAR.  431 

been  a  million  and  three-quarters  ($1,750,000)  at  least.  All  the  first  loan 
was  exhausted  some  time  since,  and  a  large  part  of  the  second  has  been 
already  anticipated.  It  will  but  last  through  October.  The  banks  do 
not  expect  to  be  called  on  at  the  rate  of  more  than  a  million  a  day ;  nor 
do  I  think  they  could  stand  a  much  larger  drain,  with  all  the  help  which 
the  national  subscription  gives. 

"  You  will  easily  see,  from  this  statement,  that  the  drafts  on  the  Treas 
ury  are  largely  in  excess  of  its  means ;  which  mortifies  and  distresses  me 
beyond  measure. 

"  It  looks  as  if  I  had  large  means,  when  the  success  of  the  loans  is  con 
sidered  by  itself;  but  when  it  is  remembered  that  this  success  supplies 
only  a  million  a  day — a  prodigious  sum,  it  is  true — while  the  drafts  are 
three-fourths  of  a  million  greater,  it  will  be  seen  at  once  how  dispropor 
tionate  are  means  to  demands. 

"  Pardon  this  detail— but  I  cannot  endure  that  you  or  your  honored 
brother  should  feel  that  any  delay  in  this  Department  occurs,  except  from 
inexorable  necessity,  where  Kentucky  is  concerned.  ..." 

To  George  Carlisle,  Esq.,  Cincinnati. 

"  WASHINGTON,  October  9, 1861. 

"  ....  It  is  as  difficult  to  meet  the  demands  for  troops  as  demands 
for  money.  All  that  is  possible,  is  to  allow  each  general  to  judge  of  the 
necessities  of  his  particular  position,  and  endeavor  to  supply  his  wants  as 
far  as  practicable.  The  call  for  a  considerable  body  from  Fremont's  de 
partment  was  doubtless  a  mistake ;  but  the  call  was  countermanded 
almost  when  made,  and  no  harm  resulted.  Not  a  single  regiment,  I  be 
lieve,  has  come  East  as  a  consequence  of  it.  I  do  not  know  that  one  has 
even  left  Missouri. 

"  I  agree  with  you  as  to  the  necessity  of  vigor  and  decision.  Timidity 
and  hesitation,  whether  in  capitalists,  or  in  officers  civil  or  military,  oc 
casion  only  danger.  ..." 

To  General  Nelson. 

"  WASHINGTON,  October  19,  1SC1. 

"  ....  I  was  greatly  annoyed  to  learn  that,  after  all  my  efforts,  you 
got  none  of  the  arms  which  were  sent  to  Kentucky.  I  telegraphed  you ; 
I  wrote  you,  and  I  had  Speed's  promise.  He  explains  by  saying  that  the 
arms  went  to  Louisville,  and  that  General  Sherman  had  such  urgent  need 
of  them  that  he  would  not  let  them  go  to  you. — All  I  can  now  do  for  you 
will  be  done.  You  have  still  a  large  sum  to  your  credit  in  Cincinnati — 
can  you  not  make  some  arrangement  with  the  State  of  Ohio  to  take  af 
cost  a  portion  of  the  arms  lately  received  by  her  from  Europe  ? 

"  As  to  popularity  growing  or  diminishing,  I  care  little.  I  want  to 
help  everybody  who  is  trying  to  do  something,  of  which  number  I  count 
you  more  than  one.  What  we  need  above  all  things  in  Kentucky  are  the 


432  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

qualities  you  have  displayed — courage,  promptitude,  organizing  faculty, 
and  economy  of  means.  ..." 

To  Jay  CooTce,  Philadelphia. 

"  WASHINGTON,  October  19, 1861. 

"  .  .  .  .  Mr.  Seward's  letter  is  misunderstood.  It  is  indeed  too  enig 
matical  in  phrase,  and  there  was  no  necessity  for  it ;  but  so  far  from  hav 
ing  a  discouraging  effect,  it  should  have  the  reverse.  It  evinces  a  dis 
position,  simply,  to  be  prepared  for  all  contingencies,  and  that  we  shall 
always  have  our  great  cities  safe.  We  are  at  peace  now  with  Europe,  and 
I  hope  and  believe  we  shall  remain  so  ;  but  events  have  taught  us  that  we 
are  not  always  safe  from  war  when  there  is  no  cause  for  it ;  not  always, 
indeed,  when  every  interest  is  against  it. 

"  There  is  no  such  intrigue  concerning  McClellan  as  that  you  speak  of 
Somebody's  fears  or  jealousies  have  misled  him.1 

To  Joseph  Cable,  Esq.,  Wyandot,  Ohio. 

"WASHINGTON,  October  28,1861. 

"  .  .  .  .  Every  exertion  has  been  made  to  supply  our  troops  in  "West 
ern  Virginia,  and  I  understand  that  sufficient  clothing,  blankets,  and  other 
equipments,  were  forwarded  long  since.  .  .  . 

'*  You  may  rest  assured  that  there  is  no  sentiment  of  hostility  in  the 
Administration  against  General  Fremont.  If  he  is  recalled  from  com 
mand  in  the  Western  Department,  it  will  be  because  the  President  believes 
that  the  army  in  Missouri  and  the  interests  of  the  cause  in  Missouri  will 
be  safer  in  other  hands  than  in  his.  If  the  President  has  changed  that 
high  opinion  of  General  Fremont  which  led  to  his  appointment  to  one  of 
the  most  responsible  positions  in  the  service,  it  is  because  the  evidence 
presented  satisfies  him  beyond  a  reasonable  doubt  that  General  Fremont 
has  not  proved  equal  to  the  charge.  You  may  depend  upon  it,  that  in 
whatever  he  does  in  the  matter,  the  President  will  be  governed  by  a  pure 
sense  of  public  duty ;  and  he  will  feel  it  better  to  perform  that  duty  and 
be  condemned  for  it  by  those  who  do  not  see  the  facts  as  he  does,  than 
neglect  it  and  risk  serious  ill  consequences  to  the  country. 

"  I  did  not  favor  General  Fremont's  appointment,  because  I  feared  the 
financial  mismanagement  which  has  actually  occurred.  I  have  however 
supported  him  to  the  extent  of  the  power  of  the  Treasury,  having  for 
warded  for  payments  in  his  department  not  less  than  $10,000,000.  .  .  .  I 
shall  feel  it  my  duty,  of  course,  to  support  the  President,  who  will  not  be 
influenced  in  his  judgment  in  the  smallest  degree  by  Fremont's  proclama 
tion.  ...» 

1  In  the  first  paragraph  of  this  letter,  Mr.  Chase  refers  to  Mr.  Seward's  Circular 
of  October  14th  to  the  Governors  of  States  advising  sea-coast  and  lake  defenses,  and 
to  an  intrigue  mentioned  by  Mr.  Cooke,  the  motive  of  which  was  the  removal  of 
General  McClellan. 


THE  TRENT  AFFAIR.  433 

To  General  George  B.  McClellan. 

"  WASHINGTON,  December  11, 1861. 

" .  .  .  .  Your  time  is  too  precious  to  be  occupied  unnecessarily,  and 
mine  is  too  necessary  to  me  to  be  wasted.  I  have  therefore  omitted  calling 
on  you,  not  "knowing  when  you  could  give  me  a  few  minutes,  and  not  de 
siring  to  waste  any  in  fruitless  endeavors  to  see  you. 

"  If  you  can  name  any  hour  at  which  you  can  see  me  better  than  at 
another,  I  shall  be  glad  to  confer  with  you  occasionally. 

"  The  army  and  the  Treasury  must  stand  or  fall  together.  ..." 

[At  the  Cabinet  meeting  of  December  26,  1861,  the  matter  for  consid 
eration  being  the  delivery  up  to  the  British  Government  of  Mason  and 
Slidell,  the  rebel  emissaries  captured  from  the  Trent  streamer,  Mr.  Chase 
said  that  in  his  judgment  "  the  technical  right  was  clearly  on  the  side  of 
the  British  Government.  As  rebels  or  traitors  to  our  Government,  the  pre 
tended  commissioners  would  have  been  safe  on  a  neutral  ship ;  it  was  in 
their  character  as  envoys  that  they  were  subject  to  arrest  as  contraband. 
But  they  could  not  rightfully  be  taken  from  the  ship  till  after  the  judicial 
condemnation  of  the  ship  itself,  for  receiving  and  carrying  them.  How 
ever  excused  or  even  justified  by  motives,  the  act  of  removing  them  as 
prisoners  from  the  ship,  without  resort  to  any  judicial  cognizance,  was  in 
itself  indefensible.  We  could  not  deny  this  without  denying  our  history. 
Were  the  circumstances  reversed,  our  Government  would  no  doubt  accept 
explanation,  and  allow  England  to  keep  her  rebels ;  and  he  could  not 
divest  himself  of  the  belief  that,  were  the  case  fairly  understood,  the 
British  Government  would  do  the  same  thing."  Though  "  it  was  gall  and 
wormwood  "  to  him  to  consent  to  the  liberation  of  these  two  men,  and  he 
would  rather  sacrifice  every  thing  he  possessed,  he  was  consoled  by  the 
reflection  that  the  surrender,  under  existing  circumstances,  was  simply 
proving  faithful  to  our  own  ideas  and  traditions  under  strong  temptation 
to  violate  them ;  and  giving  to  England  and  the  world  signal  proof  that 
the  American  people  will  not,  under  any  circumstances,  for  the  sake  of 
inflicting  just  punishment  on  rebels,  commit  even  a  technical  wrong 
against  neutrals.  He  gave  in  his  adhesion,  therefore,  to  the  conclusion  of 
the  Secretary  of  State.] 

28 


CHAPTEE  XLII. 

ME,    CHASE    AND    THE    WAB. 

1862. 

To  Henry  Wilson,  United  States  Senate. 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  10, 1862. 

" .  .  .  .  ~TT  is  said  that  the  nomination  of  Blencker  will  not  be  confirmed 
JL  by  the  Senate.  If  this  be  so,  I  am  sure  the  President  is  dis 
posed  to  nominate  Carl  Schurz  in  his  place.  The  nomination  of  Schurz 
would  be  a  decided  benefit,  in  my  judgment,  to  the  army  and  the  Admin 
istration. 

"  I  know  nothing  of  Blencker's  case,  and  do  not  desire  to  be  under 
stood  as  expressing  any  wish  in  reference  to  it,  except  for  immediate  ac 
tion.  If  he  is  worthy  he  ought  to  be  confirmed  without  reference  to 
Schurz ;  if  not  worthy,  he  should  be  rejected  without  reference  to  the 
question  of  a  successor.  But  why  not  act  in  the  matter,  and  act  at 
once  ? .  .  . " 

To  Colonel  Thomas  M.  Key. 

"  WASHINGTON,  April  18,  1S62. 

"I  am  perhaps  to  blame  for  not  replying  immediately  to  your  tele 
gram  in  cipher;  but  having  no  cipher,  and  thinking  it  uuadvisable  to 
reply  otherwise  than  by  telegraph,  neglected  doing  so  in  any  way. 

"  The  object  of  your  telegram  has  been  much  discussed  here  in  my 
absence,  and  the  President  determined,  of  his  own  thought,  to  detain 
McDowell's  corps.  Neither  General  McDowell  nor  any  of  his  friends  was 
consulted  or  advised  until  after  the  President's  resolution  had  been  taken. 
My  own  judgment,  however,  fully  confirmed  the  act,  though  in  such  mat 
ters  I  do  not  like  to  rely  much  upon  it.  I  did  not  think  the  corps  neces 
sary  for  the  defense  of  Washington,  but  I  did  think  that  acting  in  con 
junction  with  that  under  Banks,  or  at  least  in  cooperation,  it  would  give 
a  much  more  efficient  support  to  McClellan  than  if  sent  into  the  Penin 
sula.  We  are  looking  earnestly,  and  I  somewhat  anxiously,  for  news  from 


McCLELLAN  AND  McDOWELL.  435 

McDowell,  now  supposed  to  be  at  Fredericksburg,  and  from  Banks  and 
Shields,  now  probably  approaching  Stauntom 

"I  congratulate  you  on  the  passage  of  the  Emancipation  Bill,  and  on 
its  approval  by  the  President.  It  went  through  almost  unchanged  from 
your  draft — wholly  unchanged  in  spirit.  You  never  performed  a  more 
honorable  work,  and  I  wish  it  could  bear  your  name.1  ..." 

To  Captain  Daniel  Ammen,  in  the  Army  in  Florida. 

"  WASHINGTON,  April  21, 1862. 

" .  .  .  .  Thanks  for  your  letter.  Before  it  came  we  had  news  of  the 
evacuation  of  Jacksonville.  It  was  presumably  expedient ;  but  it  is  against 
the  grain. 

*'  All  seems  to  be  moving  well.  Our  generals  in  the  West  have  acquired 
brilliant  honors.  In  the  East  the  commanding  general  has  been  too  slow 
and  irresolute  to  please  me ;  but  I  feel  confident  he  will  not  fail. 

"McDowell's  corps  made  a  brilliant  movement  on  Friday,  and  Satur 
day  morning,  seizing  Fredericksburg  after  a  forced  march  of  twenty-nine 
miles  on  Friday,  and  thus  obtaining  the  command  of  the  whole  line  of  the 
Rappahannock.  ..." 

To  General  McDowell. 

"  WASHINGTON,  May  14, 1862. 

"  ....  I  have  time  for  but  a  word.  Stanton  told  me  he  should  re 
lease  you  from  the  prohibition  against  advance  yesterday.  I  hope  he  has 
done  so.  I  have  never  exactly  seen  the  cogency  of  the  reason  for  with 
holding  you,  when  you  had  the  communication  by  Belle  Plain  as  well  as 
that  by  Acquia.  But  I  am  not  military. 

"  It  has  been  one  of  my  prime  objects  of  desire  that  you  should  ad 
vance  toward  and  to  Richmond. 

"  McClellan,  surrounded  by  a  staff  of  letter-writers,  gets  possession  of 
public  opinion,  and  even  those  who  know  better,  succumb.  Then  he  lags. 

"  If  the  President,  Stanton,  and  myself,  had  not  gone  to  Fortress  Mon 
roe,  all  would  have  lagged  there  too. 

"  You  want  to  move,  as  I  understand,  but  it  is  not  judged  wise.     Well. 

"  What  I  saw  and  heard  at  Fortress  Monroe,  on  the  march  to  Norfolk, 
and  at  Norfolk,  taught  me  not  a  little. 

"  I  feel  sure  you  can  get  to  Richmond,  if  you  are  allowed  to  move  and 
do  actually  move.  There  are  disadvantages,  I  know,  but  they  are  not 
insuperable. 

"  With  5,000  men  and  you  for  a  general,  I  would  undertake  to  go  to 

1  Judge  Thomas  M.  Key  was  at  the  time  this  letter  was  written  a  member  of  the 
military  staff  of  General  McClellan,  and  was  the  author  of  the  bill  for  the  emancipa 
tion  of  the  slaves  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  which  is  the  "Emancipation  Bill  "  re 
ferred  to  by  Mr.  Chase  in  the  text.  Colonel  Key  consulted  more  or  less  constantly 
with  Mr.  Chase,  however,  in  its  preparation. 


436  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Richmond  from  Fortress  Monroe  by  the  James  River,  with  my  revenue 
steamers  Miami  and  the  Stevens,  and  the  Monitor,  in  two  days. 
"  Excuse  this  disjointed  letter.  ..." 

To  Murat  Halstead,  Cincinnati. 

"  WASHINGTON,  May  24, 1862. 

"  It  seems  certain  that  our  forces  are  too  much  scattered.  It  is  useless 
to  hold  the  coast  unless  we  can  break  the  centre  at  Richmond. 

"  My  conviction  is  clear,  however,  that  McClellan  has  a  force  which, 
properly  handled,  is  vastly  superior  to  any  that  can  be  brought  against 
him.  And  I  strongly  incline  to  the  opinion  that  with  more  under  his 
command,  he  would  be  practically  no  stronger.  What  is  needed  for  him 
is  strong  and  effective  cooperation.  ..." 

From  Mr.  Chase's  Diary,  June  26,  1862. 

"On  Sunday  morning,  May  llth"  (this  was  immediately  after  the 
taking  of  Norfolk),  "  the  President,  becoming  uneasy  because  of  his  long 
absence  from  Washington,  determined  to  return  forthwith.  The  de 
struction  of  the  Merrimac  detained  him,  however,  long  enough  to  go 
to  the  spot  and  ascertain  the  exact  condition  of  things  and  return  to 
Fortress  Monroe,  whence  we  proceeded  immediately  toward  Washing 
ton.  On  the  way  up,  I  remarked  the  probability  that  a  small  force — say 
5,000  men — embarked  on  transports  and  convoyed  by  gunboats,  might 
contribute  largely  to  the  taking  of  Richmond  if  sent  immediately  up  the 
James  River.  But  nothing  was  determined  upon.  After  our  return  I  fre 
quently  spoke  of  the  matter,  and  urged  the  sending  of  General  Wool  up 
the  river  with  all  his  available  force.  It  was  thought,  however,  that  Gen 
eral  McClellan  could  be  reenforced  more  effectually  in  another  direction. 
General  McDowell  was  ordered  to  concentrate  his  whole  corps,  including 
Shields's  division  at  Fredericksburg,  with  a  view  to  an  advance  upon  Rich 
mond  from  that  point.  Shields's  division,  which  had  been  in  the  Valley 
of  the  Shenandoah,  was  marched  across  the  country  and  joined  McDowell. 

"Friday,  May  23d,  the  President  and  Secretary  of  War  visited  the 
army  at  Fredericksburg,  and  returned  to  Washington  on  Saturday  morn 
ing,  highly  gratified  by  the  condition  of  the  troops,  and  anticipating  an 
imposing  and  successful  advance  on  the  Monday  following.  On  the  after 
noon  of  the  same  Saturday  I  was  sent  for,  to  go  to  the  War  Department, 
and  found  that  intelligence  had  been  received  of  the  taking  of  Front 
Royal  and  the  annihilation  of  Kenly's  regiment  on  the  preceding  day. 
The  enemy  was  reported  to  have  pushed  forward  and  cut  off  the  retreat 
of  Banks,  who  was  supposed  to  be  at  Strasburg.  An  order  was  immedi 
ately  dispatched  to  General  Fremont  to  advance  on  Harrisonburg,  and  do 
all  in  his  power  for  the  relief  of  Banks.  An  order  was  also  sent  to  General 
McDowell  to  detach  20,000  men,  or  one-half  his  force,  and  to  send  them 


THE  WAR  IN  VIRGINIA.  437 

partly  by  land  to  Catlett's  Station  and  partly  by  water  to  Alexandria  and 
Washington.  To  expedite  these  movements,  I  was  requested  to  proceed 
immediately  to  Fredericksburg,  and  confer  personally  with  General  Mc 
Dowell.  I  left  accordingly  on  the  same  afternoon,  and  reached  Freder 
icksburg  about  one  o'clock  on  Sunday.  I  found  that  General  McDowell 
had  given  all  the  necessary  orders  for  the  movements  directed  by  the  Presi 
dent.  The  march  began  early  the  next  morning,  and  successive  divisions 
and  regiments  followed  until,  during  the  course  of  the  day,  the  whole 
20,000  men  were  on  the  march.  I  returned  to  Washington  Sunday  night, 
accompanied  by  General  Shields,  and  found  the  President,  the  Secretary  ot 
War,  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  several  Senators  and  Representatives,  at 
the  War  Department.  By  this  time  intelligence  had  been  received  that 
Banks  had  retreated  early  on  Saturday  morning  from  Strasburg,  reach 
ing  Winchester  the  same  night,  and  that  his  retreat  had  been  continued 
through  Sunday,  and  that  a  portion  of  his  troops  had  already  arrived  at 
Williamsport.  General  Saxton  had  been  ordered  to  Harper's  Ferry,  and 
re'enforcements  had  been  and  were  still  rapidly  being  pushed  forward  to 
that  point. 

"  On  Monday  Shields's  division  arrived  at  Catlett's  Station,  and  Geary's 
division,  which  had  been  stationed  along  the  line  of  the  Manassas  Gap 
Railroad,  had  fallen  back  to  Manassas.  Ord's  division  followed,  partly  by 
water  and  partly  by  land,  and,  with  Shields's,  was  concentrated  within  a 
day  or  two  at  Manassas.  McDowell  came  from  Fredericksburg,  at  the  in 
stance  of  the  President,  and  took  command  in  person,  having  ordered 
King's  division  to  advance  toward  Martin sburg  as  a  supporting  column. 
Shields  pushed  forward  to  Front  Royal,  which  place  he  reached  on  Friday. 
McDowell  followed,  also  reaching  Front  Royal  on  Saturday.  The  objecf 
of  this  movement  was  to  cut  off  the  retreat  of  Jackson  through  Front 
Royal. 

"  Meantime  Fremont,  observing  the  spirit  though  not  the  letter  of  his 
orders,  had  marched  to  Moorfield,  and  thence  to  Wardensville,  and  cut  off 
the  retreat  of  Jackson  by  that  road.  Unfortunately,  Fremont  did  not 
reach  Strasburg  until  Jackson,  defeated  by  Saxton  on  Friday  in  his  attack 
upon  Harper's  Ferry,  and  being  apprised,  no  doubt,  of  the  movements  in 
his  rear,  had  passed  through  Strasburg,  on  his  retreat  down  the  Valley. 

"  While  this  combined  movement,  intended  to  capture  Jackson  and  his 
force,  was  in  progress,  General  McClellan  was  constantly  asking  for  reen- 
forcements  at  Richmond.  I  had  little  confidence  in  his  ability  to  handle  a 
great  army,  but  as  the  President  was  unwilling  to  give  the  command  to 
any  other  general,  I  thought  it  of  great  importance  that  he  should  be  re- 
enforced  as  far  as  possible.  To  this  end,  in  the  course  of  the  week,  I  urged 
on  several  occasions  that  one-half  of  McCall's  division  be  sent  down  to 
form  a  junction  with  McClellan's  army,  and  that  General  Wool,  with 
10,000  of  his  force,  be  sent  up  from  Fortress  Monroe  and  Norfolk,  by 
James  River,  to  effect,  if  possible,  the  capture  of  Fort  Darling,  or  at  least 
to  cooperate  with  McClellan,  whose  lines,  I  supposed,  could  be  extended 


438  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

from  Bottom's  Bridge  to  the  James  River.  These  reinforcements  were  not 
sent,  partly,  as  I  suppose,  because  the  President  was  unwilling  to  weaken 
the  advance  at  Fredericksburg,  and  partly  because  he  was  unwilling  to 
order  General  Wool,  who  was  at  variance  with  McClellan,  to  a  coopera 
tion,  which  might  lead  to  collision  between  the  generals,  and  so  to  un 
pleasant  results. 

"  I  also  urged  that,  as  McDowell's  force  had  been  drawn  into  and  near 
the  Shenandoah  Valley,  his  three  divisions— Shields's,  Ord's,  and  King's— 
should  be  massed  and  ordered  forward  to  Charlottes ville  and  Lynchburg. 
This  movement  had  been  proposed  by  General  Shields,  as  a  movement  to 
be  executed  from  Fredericksburg.  General  McDowell  also  had  proposed 
the  same.  As  much  reluctance  was  manifested  against  undertaking  the 
movement  as  had  been  in  respect  to  the  reenforcement  of  McClellan. 

"  On  Friday,  June  14th,  the  President  determined  to  send  20,000  men 
to  McClellan.  To  effect  this  object,  he  directed  the  embarkation  of  the 
whole  of  McCall's  division  at  Fredericksburg,  and  annexed  the  Depart 
ment  of  Virginia,  which  had  been  under  General  Wool,  to  the  command 
of  McClellan.  Wool  was  transferred  to  Baltimore,  and  Dix  to  Fortress 
Monroe,  to  avoid  the  apprehended  difficulties  from  placing  the  depart 
ment,  while  under  the  command  of  General  Wool,  also  under  the  com 
mand  of  McClellan.  Most  of  the  drilled  troops  of  Fortress  Monroe,  of 
whom  there  were  about  14,000,  were  sent  to  McClellan,  and  their  places 
supplied  mainly  with  new  levies.  Thus,  long  after  I  had  proposed  the  re- 
enforcement,  the  arrangement  was  made  by  which  they  were  sent. 

"  On  the  same  day,  upon  the  President  expressing  his  gratification  that 
the  reSnforcements  had  been  sent  to  McClellan,  I  replied  to  him  that  his 
satisfaction  would  be  much  increased  if  he  would  order  McDowell,  with 
his  three  divisions,  strengthened,  if  necessary,  by  portions  of  Banks's  and 
Fremont'scommands,  on  the  southward  expedition  to  Charlottesville  and 
Lynchburg.  I  endeavored  to  impress  upon  him  the  idea  that  this  move 
ment  would  be  of  great  importance  to  McClellan  by  creating  a  diversion 
in  his  favor  by  cutting  off  the  supplies  which  reached  Richmond  through 
Lynchburg.  from  East  Tennessee.  I  was  not  successful  in  impressing 
the  President  with  the  correctness  of  my  views.  I  suppose  that  his  diffi 
culty  arose,  partly  from  a  desire  to  have  McDowell  in  a  position  from 
which  he  could  directly  reenforce  McClellan,  and  partly  from  apprehen 
sion  of  disagreement  between  the  major-generals  commanding  the  separate 
bodies  which  it  might  be  necessary  to  combine  in  the  Charlottesville  ex 
pedition.  This,  of  course,  is  mere  conjecture.  What  is  certain  is,  that 
the  expedition  was  not  organized  or  attempted. 

"  Subsequently  (June  24th),  the  President,  having  become  convinced  of 
the  necessity  of  combining  these  three  bodies  under  one  command,  created 
the  Army  of  Virginia  (to  consist  of  these  three  bodies),  and  placed  it  under 
the  command  of  General  Pope,  who  was  junior  in  rank,  though  of  the 
same  grade  as  major-general,  with  Fremont,  Banks,  and  McDowell,  who  were 
made  subject  to  his  orders.  I  understand  that  the  object  of  this  consoli- 


CABINET  DISCUSSIONS.  439 

dation  was,  to  make  the  movement  upon  Charlottesville,  which  I  had  been 
so  anxious  to  see  attempted." 

To  Edwin  D.  Mansfield,  Morrow,  Ohio. 

"WASHINGTON,  May  81, 1862. 

" ....  I  agree  with  you  touching  the  importance  of  a  reserve  army. 
It  has  been  an  error,  I  think,  to  push  forward  our  whole  army  when  two- 
thirds  of  it,  skillfully  handled,  would  have  effected  the  objects  gained  by 
the  whole.  But  the  great  defect  in  the  operations  of  the  war  has  been  a 
lack  of  vigor  and  celerity  in  movement.  To  make  up  for  this,  we  accu 
mulate  immense  forces  at  particular  points,  and  wait  until  the  enemy 
retreats,  and  then  occupy  his  deserted  quarters  1  The  need  of  an  army  of 
reserve  has  lately  been  felt  by  the  Administration,  but  instead  of  organizing 
it  from  troops  already  in  the  service — which  might  easily  be  done,  and  in 
my  judgment  should  be  done — it  is  proposed  to  raise  an  additional  force 
of  50,000  men  for  three  years  or  the  war.  Besides  this  force,  the  alarm 
created  by  the  recent  raid  of  Jackson,  Ewell,  and  Johnson,  into  the  Shen- 
andoah  Valley,  has  led  to  a  call  for  three  months'  volunteers  in  any  num 
bers  offered  within  ten  days.  "What  the  result  of  the  call  may  be  is  not  yet 
known,  but  at  least  15,000  have  already  been  organized  under  it.  The 
practical  result  will  be,  I  fear,  to  retard  if  not  to  defeat  the  enlistments 
necessary  to  create  a  strong  army.  Nous  verrons,  as  Father  Ritchie  used 
to  say. 

"I  hope  to  hear  to-morrow  of  the  rout  of  Jackson's  army  in  the  Valley. 
That  destroyed  or  routed,  the  60,000  men  engaged  in  the  work  will  be 
free  to  cooperate  with  McClellan  or  anybody  else.  My  conviction  is,  that 
there  cannot  be  a  great  deal  more  fighting  by  large  bodies.  Corinth  is7 
already  evacuated,  and  I  doubt  much  if  Richmond  will  be  defended  at  the 
hazard  of  a  great  battle ;  though  a  great  battle  seems  more  probable  there 
in  front  of  the  rebel  capital,  than  anywhere  else.  ..." 

From  Mr.  Chase's  Diary,  July  21,  1862. 

Having  received  notice  of  a  Cabinet  meeting,  Mr.  Chase  says  : 
"  I  went  to  the  President's  at  the  appointed  hour,  and  found  that  he 
was  profoundly  concerned  at  the  present  aspect  of  affairs,  and  had  deter 
mined  to  take  some  definite  steps  in  respect  to  military  action  and  slavery. 
He  had  prepared  several  orders,  the  first  of  which  contemplated  author 
ity  to  commanders  to  subsist  their  troops  in  the  hostile  territory ;  the 
second,  authority  to  employ  negroes  as  laborers;  the  third,  requiring 
that  both  in  the  case  of  property  taken  and  negroes  employed,  accounts 
should,  be  kept  with,  such  degree  of  certainty  as  would  enable  compensation 
to  be  made  in  proper  cases.  Another  provided  for  the  colonization  of 
negroes  in  some  tropical  country. 

"  A  good  deal  of  discussion  took  place  upon  these  points.  The  first 
order  was  unanimously  approved.  The  second  was  also  unanimously  ap- 


440  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

proved ;  and  the  third  by  all  except  myself.  I  doubted  the  expediency  of 
attempting  to  keep  accounts  for  the  benefit  of  inhabitants  of  rebel  States. 
The  colonization  project  was  not  much  discussed. 

"  The  Secretary  of  War  presented  some  letters  from  General  Hunter,  in 
which  General  Hunter  advised  the  department  that  the  withdrawal  of  a 
large  proportion  of  his  troops  to  reinforce  General  McClellan  rendered  it 
highly  important  that  he  should  be  immediately  authorized  to  enlist  all  loyal 
persons  without  reference  to  complexion.  Mr.  Stanton,  Mr.  Seward,  and 
myself,  expressed  ourselves  in  favor  of  this  plan,  and  no  one  expressed  him 
self  against  it.  Mr.  Blair  was  not  present.  The  President  was  not  pre 
pared  to  decide  the  question,  but  expressed  himself  as  averse  to  arming 
negroes." 

(The  next  day,  July  23d,1  another  meeting  was  held,  and  the 
discussion  of  the  "  orders  "  was  resumed.  Mr.  Chase  said :) 

"  Went  to  the  Cabinet  at  the  appointed  hour.  It  was  unanimously 
agreed  that  the  order  in  respect  to  colonization  should  be  dropped ;  and 
the  others  were  adopted  unanimously  except  that  I  wished  North  Carolina 
included  in  the  States  named  in  the  first"  order. 

"  The  question  of  arming  slaves  was  then  brought  up,  and  I  advocated 
it  warmly.  The  President  was  unwilling  to  adopt  this  measure,  but  pro- 

1  In  his  diary  of  this  same  date,  July  22d,  Mr.  Chase  says  :  "  I  called  this  morn 
ing  on  the  President  with  a  letter  received  some  time  since  from  Colonel  Key,  in 
which  he  stated  that  he  had  reason  to  believe  that  if  General  McClellan  found  he 
could  not  otherwise  sustain  himself  in  Virginia,  he  would  declare  the  liberation  of 
the  slaves ;  and  that  the  President  would  not  dare  to  interfere  with  the  order.  I 
urged  upon  the  President  the  importance  of  an  immediate  change  in  the  command 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  representing  the  necessity  of  having  a  general  in  that 
command  who  would  cordially  and  effectually  cooperate  with  the  movements  of 
Pope  and  others ;  and  urged  the  change  before  the  arrival  of  General  Halleck,  in  view 
of  the  extreme  delicacy  of  his  position  in  this  respect,  General  McClellan  being  his 
senior  major-general.  I  said  that  I  did  not  regard  General  McClellan  as  loyal  to  the 
Administration,  although  I  did  not  question  his  general  loyalty  to  the  country. 

"  I  also  urged  General  McClellan's  removal  upon  financial  grounds.  I  told  him 
that  if  such  a  change  in  the  command  was  made  as  would  insure  action  in  the  army, 
and  give  power  in  the  ratio  of  its  strength,  and  if  such  measures  were  adopted  in  re 
spect  to  slavery  as  would  inspire  the  country  with  confidence,  that  no  measure  would 
be  left  untried  which  promised  a  speedy  and  successful  result,  I  would  insure  that, 
within  ten  days,  the  bonds  of  the  United  States,  except  the  five-twenties,  would  be 
so  far  above  par  that  conversions  into  the  latter  stock  would  take  place  rapidly,  and 
furnish  the  necessary  means  for  carrying  on  the  Government.  If  this  was  not  done, 
it  seemed  to  me  impossible  to  meet  necessary  expenses.  Already  there  were 
$10,000,000  of  unpaid  requisitions,  and  this  amount  would  constantly  increase. 

"  The  President  came  to  no  conclusion,  but  said  he  would  confer  with  General 
Halleck  on  all  these  matters.'  I  left  him,  promising  to  return  to  the  Cabinet,  when 
the  subject  of  the  orders  discussed  yesterday  would  be  resumed." 


THE  ARMING  OF  SLAVES.  441 

posed  to  issue  a  proclamation  on  the  basis  of  the  Confiscation  Bill,  calling 
upon  the  States  to  return  to  their  allegiance — warning  rebels  that  the  pro 
visions  of  the  act  would  have  full  force  at  the  expiration  of  sixty  days — 
adding,  on  his  own  part,  a  declaration  of  his  intention  to  renew,  at  the 
next  session  of  Congress,  his  recommendation  of  compensation  to  States 
adopting  the  gradual  abolishment  of  slavery — and  proclaiming  the  eman 
cipation  of  all  slaves  within  States  remaining  in  insurrection  on  the  1st 
of  January,  1863. 

"  I  said  that  I  should  give  to  such  a  measure  my  cordial  support ;  but 
I  should  prefer  that  no  new  expression  on  the  subject  of  compensation 
should  be  made ;  and  I  thought  that  the  measure  of  emancipation  could 
be  much  better  and  more  quietly  accomplished  by  allowing  generals  to  or 
ganize  and  arm  the  slaves  (thus  avoiding  depredation  and  massacre  on 
one  hand,  and  support  to  the  insurrection  on  the  other),  and  by  directing 
the  commanders  of  departments  to  proclaim  emancipation  within  their 
districts  as  soon  as  practicable ;  but  I  regarded  this  as  so  much  better  than 
inaction  on  the  subject,  that  I  should  give  it  my  entire  support. 

''  The  President  determined  to  publish  the  first  three  orders  forthwith, 
and  to  leave  the  other  for  some  further  consideration.  The  impression 
left  upon  my  mind  by  the  whole  discussion  was,  that,  while  the  President 
thought  that  the  organization,  equipment,  and  arming  of  negroes,  like 
other  soldiers,  would  be  productive  of  more  evil  than  good,  he  was  not 
unwilling  that  commanders  should,  at  their  discretion,  arm,  for  purely 
defensive  purposes,  slaves  coming  within  their  lines." 

(At  the  Cabinet  meeting  of  August  3d,  Mr.  Chase  said :) 

"  I  again  expressed  my  conviction  that  the  time  for  the  suppression  of  „. 
the  rebellion,  without  interfering  with  slavery,  had  long  been  passed  ;  that 
it  was  possible,  probably  at  the  outset,  by  striking  the  insurrectionists 
wherever  found,  strongly  and  decisively ;  but  we  had  elected  to  act  on  the 
principle  of  a  civil  war,  assuming  that  the  whole  population  of  every  seced 
ing  State  was  engaged  against  the  Federal  Government,  instead  of  treat 
ing  the  active  secessionists  as  insurgents  and  exerting  our  utmost  energies 
for  their  arrest  and  punishment ;  that  the  bitterness  of  the  conflict  had 
now  substantially  united  the  white  population  of  the  rebel  States  against 
us ;  that  the  loyal  whites  remaining,  if  they  would  not  prefer  the  Union 
without  slavery,  certainly  would  not  prefer  slavery  to  the  Union;  that  the 
blacks  were  really  the  only  loyal  population  worth  counting ;  and  that,  in 
the  Gulf  States,  at  least,  their  right  to  freedom  ought  to  be  at  once  recog 
nized  ;  while  in  the  border  States  the  President's  plan  of  emancipation 
might  be  made  the  basis  of  the  necessary  measures  for  their  ultimate  en 
franchisement  ;  that  the  practical  mode  of  effecting  this  seemed  to  me 
quite  simple ;  that  the  President  had  already  spoken  of  the  importance  of 
making  the  freed  blacks  on  the  Mississippi,  below  Tennessee,  a  safeguard 
to  the  navigation  of  the  river ;  that  Mitchell,  with  a  few  thousand  soldiers, 


442  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

could  take  Vicksburg ;  assure  the  blacks  freedom  on  condition  of  loyalty, 
organize  the  best  of  them  in  companies,  regiments,  etc. ;  and  provide,  as 
far  as  practicable,  for  the  cultivation  of  the  plantations  by  the  rest ;  that 
Butler  should  signify  to  the  slaveholders  of  Louisiana  that  they  must 
recognize  the  freedom  of  their  work-people  by  paying  them  wages ;  and 
that  Hunter  should  do  the  same  thing  in  South  Carolina. 

"  Mr.  Seward  expressed  himself  in  favor  of  any  measures  likely  to  ac 
complish  the  results  I  contemplated,  which  could  be  carried  into  effect  with 
out  proclamation ;  and  the  President  said  he  was  pretty  well  cured  of 
objection  to  any  measure  except  want  of  adaptedness  to  put  down  the  re 
bellion,  but  did  not  seem  satisfied  that  the  time  had  come  for  the  adop 
tion  of  such  a  plan  as  I  proposed." 


CHAPTER  XLIII. 

1862. 

To  Hon.  William,  M.  Dickson,  Cincinnati. 

"WASHINGTON,  August  29,  1862. 

" .  .  .  .  Ql  INGE  the  incoming  of  General  Halleck  I  have  known  but  little 
kJ  more  of  the  progress  of  the  war  than  any  outsider. — I  mean  so 
far  as  influencing  it  goes.  My  recommendations,  before  he  came  in,  were 
generally  disregarded,  and  since  have  been  seldom  ventured.  In  two  or 
three  conversations  I  did  insist  on  the  removal  of  McClellan,  and  the  sub 
stitution  of  an  abler  and  more  vigorous  and  energetic  leader ;  on  the  clear 
ing  out  of  the  Mississippi,  and  the  expulsion  of  the  rebels  from  East  Ten 
nessee  ;  all  of  which  might  have  been  done.  But,  though  heard,  I  was  not 
heeded. 

"  I  hope  for  the  best.  Those  who  reject  my  counsels  ought  to  know 
better  than  I  do.  ..." 

From  Mr.  Chase's  Diary. 

August  29,  1862. — Mr.  Stanton  and  Mr.  Chase  had  a  conference  about 
General  McClellan.  "  We  called  on  Judge  Bates,  who  was  not  at  home ; 
then  on  General  Halleck,  and  remonstrated  against  General  McClellan; 
the  Secretary  wrote  and  presented  to  General  Halleck  a  call  for  a  report 
touching  General  McClellan's  disobedience  of  orders  and  consequent  delay 
of  support  to  the  Army  of  Virginia.  General  Halleck  promised  an  answer 
to-morrow  morning." 

August  30th. — "Judge  Bates  called,  and  we  conversed  about  McClellan ; 
he  concurring  in  our  judgment.  Afterward  I  went  to  the  "War  Department, 
where  Watson  showed  me  a  paper  expressing  our  views,  and  I  suggested 
some  modifications.  I  afterward  saw  Stanton.  He  approved  the  modifi 
cations  and  we  both  signed  it."  (This  paper  was  a  protest,  condemning  V  tf^ 
General  McClellan's  conduct,  and  demanding  his  removal  from  the  command 
of  the  army.)  "  I  then  took  the  paper  to  Mr.  Welles,  who  concurred  in 
judgment,  but  thought  the  paper  not  exactly  right,  and  did  not  sign  it. 
Returned  the  paper  to  Stanton.  The  promised  report  from  General  Halleck 
was  not  made." 


444  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

September  %d. — "  The  Cabinet  met,  but  at  the  opening  of  the  meeting 
neither  the  President  nor  the  Secretary  of  State  nor  the  Secretary  of  War 
was  present.  While  the  talk  was  going  on  about  General  McClellan,  the 
President  came  in,  saying  that  he  had  been  at  the  War  Department  and 
headquarters  talking  about  the  war.  The  Secretary  of  War  came  in.  In 
answer  to  some  inquiry,  the  fact  was  stated  by  the  President  or  the  Secretary 
that  McClellan  had  been  placed  in  command  of  the  forces  to  defend  the  capi 
tal  or,  rather,  to  use  the  President's  own  words,  '  he  had  set  him  to  putting 
these  troops  into  the  fortifications  about  Washington,'  believing  that  he 
could  do  that  better  than  any  other  man.  I  remarked  that  this  could  be 
done  equally  well  by  the  engineer  who  had  constructed  the  forts,  and  that 
putting  General  McClellan  in  command  for  this  purpose  was  equivalent  to 
making  him  second  in  command  of  the  entire  army.  The  Secretary  of 
War  said  that  no  one  was  now  responsible  for  the  defense  of  the  capital ; 
that  the  order  to  McClellan  was  given  by  the  President  direct  to  McClellan, 
and  that  General  Halleck  considered  himself  relieved  from  responsibility, 
although  he  acquiesced  and  approved  the  order ;  that  McClellan  could  now 
shield  himself,  should  any  thing  go  wrong,  under  Halleck,  while  Halleck 
could  and  would  disclaim  all  responsibility  for  the  order  given.  The 
President  thought  General  Halleck  as  much  responsible  as  before,  and 
repeated  that  the  whole  scope  of  the  order  was,  simply,  to  direct  McClellan 
to  put  the  troops  into  the  fortifications,  and  command  them  for  the  de 
fense  of  Washington.  I  remarked  that  this  seemed  to  me  equivalent  to 
making  him  commander-in-chief  for  the  time  being,  and  that  I  thought  it 
would  prove  very  difficult  to  make  any  substitution  hereafter,  for  active 
operations ;  that  I  had  no  feeling  whatever  against  McClellan ;  that  he 
came  to  the  command  with  my  cordial  approbation  and  support ;  that  until 
I  became  satisfied  that  his  delays  would  greatly  injure  our  cause,  he  pos 
sessed  my  full  confidence  ;  that  after  I  had  felt  myself  compelled  to  with 
hold  that  confidence,  I  had  (since  the  President,  notwithstanding  my  opin 
ion  that  he  should,  refrained  from  putting  another  in  the  command)  given 
him  all  possible  support  in  every  way,  raising  means  and  urging  reenforce- 
ments ;  that  his  experience  as  a  military  commander  had  been  little  else 
than  a  series  of  failures ;  and  that  his  omission  to  urge  troops  forward  to 
the  battles  of  Friday  and  Saturday  evinced  a  spirit  which  rendered  him 
unworthy  of  trust,  and  that  I  could  not  but  feel  that  giving  command  to 
him  was  equivalent  to  giving  Washington  to  the  rebels.  This,  and  more, 
I  said.  Other  members  of  the  Cabinet  expressed  a  general  concurrence, 
but  in  no  very  energetic  terms.  (Mr.  Blair  must  be  excepted,  but  he  did 
not  dissent.) 

"  The  President  said  it  distressed  him  exceedingly  to  find  himself  dif 
fering  on  such  a  point  from  the  Secretary  of  War  and  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury ;  but  he  did  not  see  who  •  could  do  the  work  wanted  so  well  as 
McClellan.  ...  At  length  the  conversation  ended,  and  the  meeting  broke 
up,  leaving  the  matter  as  we  found  it." 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN.  445 

The  following  "  ]N"otes  on  the  Union  of  the  Armies  of  the  Po 
tomac  and  the  Army  of  Virginia,"  were  written  by  Mr.  Chase 
just  after  the  reinstatement  of  General  McClellan  in  command 
of  the  army,  September  2,  1862,  and  were  intended  to  explain 
the  causes  which  led  to  the  withdrawal  of  his  confidence  from 
that  officer : 

"It  may  have  been  an  error  of  niy judgment,  but  certainly  it  was  not  a 
perversity  of  disposition,  that  caused  my  withdrawal  of  confidence  from 
General  McClellan.  I  welcomed  him  to  the  command  of  the  army  at 
Washington,  with  the  most  unaffected  satisfaction,  and  when  his  delays 
disappointed  my  hopes,  received  with  credence  almost  if  not  entirely  abso 
lute,  the  assurances  of  those  having  the  best  opportunities  to  know,  that 
his  activity  was  thwarted  by  the  disinclination  of  General  Scott  to  give 
him  means  and  opportunities.  I  honored  General  Scott  to  the  point  of 
veneration,  and  shared  the  general  confidence  in  his  military  knowledge 
and  genius ;  but  I  knew  at  what  cost  of  physical  suffering  he  discharged 
the  arduous  duties  of  his  position,  and  was  not  surprised  when  he  availed 
himself  of  the  act  of  Congress,  and  asked  to  be  retired.  My  voice  was  at 
once  given  in  concurrence  with  those  of  other  heads  of  departments — we 
had  no  Cabinet — for  the  placing  of  General  McClellan  in  command  of  the 
armies  of  the  United  States.  The  President  was  disinclined  to  this,  but 
yielded  his  objection  and  the  order  was  made.  L immediately  wrote  a  note 
to  Colonel  Key — McClellan's  judge-advocate — 'McClellan  is  commander-in- 
chief ;  let  us  thank  God  and  take  courage.'  Subsequent  events  painfully 
convinced  me  that  my  confidence  had  not  been  warranted. 

"  At  the  President's  instance,  General  McClellan  called  on  me  in  No 
vember,  and  explained  to  me  what  he  said  was  his  plan.  It  was  to  send 
50,000  men  to  Urbana,  on  the  Rappahannock ;  establish  them  there  im 
mediately  ;  follow  this  advance  by  another  body  of  50,000  men  at  once ; 
push  on  to  Richmond  and  capture  it  before  the  enemy  in  front  of  Wash 
ington  could  move  to  its  defense.  Nothing  but  great  energy  and  great 
secrecy  could  insure  the  success  of  such  a  movement,  but  with  these  its 
success  seemed  certain.  He  asked  me  how  early  an  advance  was  necessary 
to  the  success  of  the  finances,  and  I  replied  that  I  could  get  along  under 
existing  arrangements  until  about  the  middle  of  February ;  and  he  assured 
me  that  the  whole  movement  would  be  accomplished  before  the  1st  of 
that  month,  and  that  he  had  already  begun  his  arrangements  for  gathering 
his  transportation  at  Annapolis.  I  was  satisfied  with  these  explanations, 
and  when  I  went  to  New  York  soon  after,  expressed  at  a  large  meeting  of 
leading  capitalists  my  entire  confidence  in  our  young  general,  and  my  cer 
tain  assurance  that  we  were  to  have  no  going  into  winter  quarters. 

"  When  I  returned  from  New  York  I  found  that  no  steps  had  been 
taken  toward  the  proposed  movement.  November  passed  away  and  noth 
ing  was  done  or  even  begun.  McClellan  fell  sick.  The  President  called 


446  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

several  generals  to  his  councils — McDowell,  Franklin,  and  Meigs — and 
almost  determined  to  put  the  army  under  another  leader  and  advance  on 
Manassas.  McClellan  got  well  just  in  time  to  neutralize  action,  and  noth 
ing  was  done.  I  had  now  so  far  lost  confidence  in  him,  that  I  was  con 
vinced  a  change  ought  to  be  made. 

"  December  passed  and  nothing  was  done. 

"  In  January  Mr.  Stanton  came  into  the  War  Department,  and  put  his 
whole  influence  on  the  side  of  vigor.  The  President  made  a  general  order 
— January  27th — requiring  all  generals  to  put  their  commands  in  condition 
and  to  commence  an  onward  movement  at  latest  on  the  22d  of  February. — 
Time  passed  in  listless  inaction ;  broken  only  by  the  famous  campaign 
toward  Winchester.  One  morning  forty  thousand  men  found  themselves 
put  in  motion,  and  McClellan  and  his  staff  moved  off  in  all  the  pomp  of 
war  to  drive  the  rebels  from  that  place,  and  seize  the  gate  of  the  Shenandoah 
Valley.  Boats  to  bridge  the  Potomac  were  provided  and  sent  up  the 
Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Canal.  The  general  and  his  staff  proceeded  perhaps 
to  Weaverton — I  do  not  know  precisely  how  far — when,  much  to  his  dis 
appointment,  he  learned  that  his  boats  were  too  big  for  the  locks !  and 
therefore  could  not  pass  from  the  canal  into  the  Potomac.  So  the  expedi 
tion  was  abandoned.  Some  troops  under  Banks  went  over  the  river ;  but 
McClellan  and  his  staff  and  the  great  body  of  the  army  returned  to  Wash 
ington.  The  expedition,  it  was  said,  and  not  untruly,  died  of  lock-jaw. 

"  February  came,  and  on  the  13th  General  McClellan  said  to  me,  '  In 
ten  days  I  shall  be  in  Richmond.'  A  little  surprised  at  the  near  approach 
of  a  consummation  so  devoutly  to  be  wished,  I  asked,  '*  What  is  your 
plan,  general  ? '  '  Oh,'  said  he,  '  I  mean  to  cross  the  river ;  attack  and 
carry  their  batteries,  and  push  on  after  the  enemy.'  '  Have  you  any  gun 
boats  to  aid  in  the  attack  on  the  batteries  V1  '  No  :  they  are  not  needed ; 
all  I  want  is  transportation  and  canal-boats,  of  which  I  have  plenty  that 
will  answer.'  I  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  reply ;  but  made  a  note 
of  the  date,  and  waited. — The  ten  days  passed  away  ;  no  movement,  and 
no  preparation  for  a  movement,  had  been  made.  The  day  fixed  by  the 
order  of  the  President  had  passed ;  we  heard  the  echoes  of  victory  from 
the  West,  but  all  was  quiet  on  the  Potomac. 

"  At  length,  about  the  1st  of  March,  the  President  gave  McClellan  a 
peremptory  order  to  move  in  ten  days.  Great  efforts  were  put  forth  to 
induce  him  to  reverse  the  order.  McClellan  convened  a  council  of  his 
generals,  and  having  inspired  them  with  his  ideas,  sent  them  to  the  Presi 
dent  to  give  him  the  results  of  their  deliberations.  The  President  told 
me  he  had  expected  them,  and  had  asked  McClellan  to  be  present ;  who 
had  declined,  on  the  ground  that  he  did  not  wish  to  influence  their  deci 
sion.  They  presented  themselves  at  the  White  House,  and  eight,  I  think, 
were  of  opinion  that  it  would  not  be  safe  to  move  till  the  25th  of  April, 
while  four  were  for  an  immediate  advance.  Of  the  four  I  recall  only  the 

1  The  rebels  at  this  time  had  several  batteries  upon  the  Virginia  side  of  the  Potomac. 


DISASTERS  BEFORE  RICHMOND.  447 

names  of  McDowell,  Sumner,  and  Heintzelman ;  and  of  the  eight,  only 
those  of  Blencker,  Fitz  John  Porter,  Franklin,  and  Keyes.  Mr.  Stanton 
questioned  each  general  as  to  the  grounds  of  his  opinion,  and  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  advance  should  not  be  postponed.  The  tenth  of  the 
ten  days  came,  and  there  was  an  immense  commotion.  The  whole  army 
was  moving  toward  Manassas.  As  it  approached  the  place,  it  was  found 
that  the  enemy  had  evacuated  it  some  days  before,  and  were  in  retreat 
toward  Richmond. 

"  It  was  now  painfully  apparent  that  our  immense  and  magnificently 
appointed  army  had  been  held  in  check  for  months  by  a  force  not  one- 
third  as  great  in  numbers,  and  inferior  in  almost  all  other  respects,  and 
that  the  impregnable  fortifications,  which  had  been  so  magnified  by  our 
generals,  were  works  of  little  strength  and  incapable  of  withstanding  any 
vigorous  assault.  The  rebel  flag  had  been  flaunted  in  our  sight  from 
Munson's  Hill  by  an  inconsiderable  detachment  for  months,  until  it  was 
voluntarily  withdrawn.  Our  generals  had  not  ventured  an  attack  on  even 
this  weak  position. 

"  After  the  evacuation  of  Manassas,  the  mode  of  advance  upon  Rich 
mond  became  immediately  the  subject  of  debate.  The  President,  the 
Secretary  of  War,  myself,  and  some  of  the  generals,  favored  a  direct  and 
rapid  march  forward.  General  McClellan  preferred,  I  believe,  the  Urbana 
route.  Most  of  the  generals  preferred  the  Peninsular  route,  by  Fortress 
Monroe  and  Yorktown.  McClellan  preferred  this  to  the  direct  advance, 
and  it  was  finally  determined  upon. 

"  I  do  not  mean  to  review  the  disastrous  campaign  of  the  Peninsula. 
From  the  day  the  President  told  me  McClellan  was  beaten,  and  I  saw  his 
dispatches  announcing  his  retreat  toward  the  James  River,  I  never  enter 
tained  a  doubt  of  the  necessity  of  withdrawing  the  army  altogether,  if  it 
was  to  remain  under  his  command  ;  and  I  expressed  this  opinion  at  once 
to  the  President.  The  military  men  said,  that  to  attempt  to  withdraw 
the  army  would  involve  the  loss  of  all  its  material,  ammunition,  guns, 
provisions,  and  stores.  General  McClellan  himself,  in  his  dispatches  before 
reaching  Harrison's  Landing,  referred  to  the  possibility  of  being  obliged 
to  capitulate  with  his  entire  army ;  and  after  reaching  that  place,  General 
Marcy — his  father-in-law  and  chief  of  staff — who  had  been  sent  up  to 
explain  personally  the  situation  to  the  President,  spoke  of  the  possibility 
of  his  capitulation  at  once,  or  within  two  or  three  days.  The  danger  of 
withdrawal ;  the  impossibility  of  strengthening  the  army  for  an  advance 
on  Richmond  from  the  position  to  which  it  had  retreated ;  the  certainty 
that  no  vigorous  effort  would  be  made  by  McClellan,  by  unexpected  blows 
south  of  the  James,  to  retrieve  the  disasters  north  of  it;  the  possibility  of 
the  loss  of  the  entire  army,  convinced  me,  and  convinced  the  Secretary  of 
War,  that  the  command  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  should  be  given  to 
some  more  active  officer.  We  proposed  to  the  President  to  send  Pope  to 
the  James,  and  give  Mitchell  the  command  of  the  army  in  front  of  Wash 
ington — which  had  been  constituted  of  the  armies  of  Banks,  Fremont,  and 


448  TJFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

McDowell,  and  called  the  Army  of  Virginia,  and  placed  under  Pope.  The 
President  was  not  prepared  for  any  thing  so  decisive,  and  sent  for  Halleck, 
and  made  him  commander-in-chief.  I  was  not  consulted  as  to  this  step. 
If  any  member  of  the  Cabinet  was,  I  am  not  informed  of  it. 

"  On  Halleck's  arrival  he  went  at  once  to  the  James  to  see  McClellan. 
On  his  return,  at  the  President's  instance,  he  also  came  to  see  me  as  to  the 
relations  of  the  war  to  the  finances.  I  cannot  fix  the  date.  It  was  late  in 
July.  He  unreservedly  condemned  McClellan's  whole  military  operations, 
and  especially  the  conduct  of  the  engagement  before  Richmond,  and  the 
subsequent  retreat  to  the  James.  I  told  him  that  to  a  revival  of  the  credit 
of  the  country  two  things  were  necessary :  First,  that  some  vigorous  and 
able  general  should  be  placed  in  command  of  the  army  on  the  James 
River  instead  of  McClellan ;  and,  secondly,  that  the  Mississippi  should  be 
opened.  I  spoke  also  of  the  importance  of  a  more  rapid  advance  into 
East  Tennessee.  He  gave  me  no  satisfaction  on  any  point.  He  said  that 
McClellan  would  do  very  well  under  orders  from  himself;  that  no  force 
could  be  withdrawn  from  Grant  if  that  general  was  to  take  Vicksburg 
and  open  the  Mississippi;  that  Curtis's  army  was  required  to  prevent  in 
vasion  of  Missouri  from  Arkansas ;  and  that  Buell  was  marching  toward 
Chattanooga,  though  his  movements  were  intolerably  slow. 

"  About  this  time  I  saw  a  good  deal  of  General  Pope.  It  was  just 
before  he  left  Washington  (where  he  had  been  detained  by  the  President 
until  Halleck's  arrival),  to  take  command  of  the  army  in  the  field.  He 
condemned  General  McClellan's  conduct  more  and  in  stronger  terms  than 
General  Halleck ;  and  said  that  in  conversation  he  found  Halleck  quite 
agreed  with  him,  but  averse  to  precipitate  action.  He  also  said,  what  from 
other  evidence  I  entertained  no  doubt  of,  that  he  had  warned  the  President 
that  he  (Pope)  could  not  safely  command  the  Army  of  Virginia  if  its  suc 
cess  was  to  depend  on  any  cooperation  of  McClellan,  for  he  felt  assured 
that  his  cooperation  would  fail  wherever  emergencies  should  make  it 
really  important. 

"  General  Pope  seemed  to  me  an  earnest,  active,  intelligent  man,  and  in 
spired  me  with  the  best  hopes.  I  could  not  believe  that  McClellan  would 
be  continued  in  command  until  the  failure  dreaded  by  Pope  should  occur, 
and  I  therefore  hailed  his  departure  to  the  field  with  great  satisfaction. 

"It  had  been  already  determined  by  General  Halleck  to  withdraw 
General  McClellan's  army  from  the  Peninsula.  General  Pope  was  ordered 
to  push  southward  as  far  as  he  could  with  safety,  and  draw  the  enemy  from 
Richmond.  He  did  so.  By  several  bold  and  skillfully-executed  move 
ments,  he  broke  up  the  railroad  in  several  places ;  and  not  only  drew  their 
attention,  but  impeded  considerably  their  progress  toward  him.  His 
main  army  was  advanced  to  the  Rapidan,  after  driving  Jackson  back 
across  that  river  by  the  battle  of  Slaughter  or  Cedar  Mountain.  This 
engagement  and  its  results  caused  considerable  delay  to  the  enemy. 

"Meantime,  after  spending  some  days  in  remonstrances  against  the 
order  of  General  Halleck,  General  McClellan  began  to  send  off  his  army 


SECOND  BATTLE  OF  BULL  RUN.  449 

from  the  James;  but  his  movement  was  much  delayed  by  unwillingness 
to  execute  it.  It  had,  indeed,  become  so  apparent  that  a  large  proportion 
of  the  enemy's  force  had  moved  toward  Pope,  that  it  seemed  to  me,  and  I 
suggested  to  General  Halleck,  that  an  advance  upon  Richmond  under  a 
vigorous  and  able  leader — or  at  any  rate  a  march  toward  Fredericksburg, 
leaving  Richmond  on  the  left — was  entirely  feasible,  and  would  secure 
the  junction  of  the  two  armies  sooner  than  transportation  by  the  river  and 
bay,  and  marches  to  Fortress  Monroe  and  Yorktown.  He  did  not  accept 
this  idea,  but  insisted  on  the  speediest  possible  embarkation  and  march  of 
the  troops,  with  a  view  to  uniting  them  with  the  Army*  of  Virginia,  before 
the  rebels  could  force  Pope  back  on  Washington  with  their  massed  force. 
So  the  movement  went  on.  Some  of  the  troops  were  embarked  on  transports 
and  brought  to  Alexandria ;  some  were  marched  to  Newport  News  and  some 
to  Yorktown,  and  there  embarked  and  brought  to  Aquia  and  Alexandria. 

"  While  these  things  were  taking  place,  Pope  was  vigorously  disputing 
the  advance  of  the  enemy.  When  their  whole  force  was  concentrated  be 
fore  him,  south  of  the  Rapidan,  in  the  hope  of  overwhelming  his  army  by 
superior  numbers  before  a  junction  with  McClellan's  army  could  be  effected, 
he  suddenly  fell  back  beyond  the  Rappahannock,  without  loss  and  with 
out  disorder.  The  enemy  followed,  and  a  protracted  struggle  took  place 
on  the  Rappahannock.  Pope  disputed  their  crossing  for  many  miles  up  and 
down  that  river  from  the  station  of  the  Orange  &  Alexandria  Railroad, 
but  he  was  not  in  sufficient  force  to  prevent  them  passing  up  the  country, 
and  by  a  long  detour  coming  through  the  mountains.  By  this  move 
ment,  the  enemy  succeeded  in  reaching  Manassas  Junction  in  Pope's  rear. 
He  supposed  they  would  find  that  place  strongly  occupied  by  troops  from 
McClellan's  army,  but  the  fact  was  otherwise.  The  occupying  force  was 
inconsiderable  and  was  easily  scattered.  Meanwhile  Pope  having  defended 
the  passage  of  the  Rappahannock  until  the  enemy  had  thus  reached  his 
rear,  suddenly  turned  round  and  by  rapid  marches  attacked  the  enemy  at 
Manassas,  followed  him  to  the  plains  of  Bull  Run,  and  by  a  judicious  dis 
position  of  his  forces,  engaged  him  there  at  such  advantage,  before  the 
rest  of  the  rebel  army  could  come  up,  that  victory  seemed  almost  certain. 

"  During  these  last  days,  however,  McClellan  had  arrived  at  Alexan 
dria,  and  manifested  great  aversion  to  sending  troops  to  General  Pope. 
Repeated  orders  from  General  Halleck  produced  slow  and  inadequate  re 
sults  in  movements  of  troops.  The  feeling  manifested  by  McClellan  ex 
tended  itself  to  some  of  the  officers  of  his  army ;  especially  to  Porter,  who 
had  been  sent  forward  by  the  way  of  Aquia  and  Falrnouth,  and  already 
made  a  part  of  Pope's  command.  This  general  manifested  no  disposition  to 
act  cordially  under  his  new  commander ;  but  on  the  contrary,  by  delays  and 
ill-tempered  action,  so  mismanaged  his  force  that  the  victory,  which  seemed 
almost  in  the  grasp  of  the  Union  army,  was  snatched  from  it.  The  result 
of  the  battle  of  Friday,  when  Pope's  combined  attack  on  the  advanced 
rebel  army  was  made,  was  indeed  a  success ;  and  had  he  been  supported 

as  he  should  have  been,  it  would  have  been  decisive.    The  advanced  army. 
29 


450  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

would  have  been  captured  or  so  thoroughly  routed,  that  recovery,  even 
with  the  heavy  reinforcements  near  at  hand,  would  hardly  have  been 
possible.  As  it  was,  the  enemy  fell  back,  only  to  be  reenforced  by  the  main 
body ;  and  the  next  day  renewed  the  fight.  Again  Pope  engaged  them 
with  his  overworked  and  diminished  forces ;  but  the  divisions  of  Frank 
lin  and  Sumner,  eagerly  expected,  'had  been  so  long  withheld  from  ad 
vance,  that  they  could  not  come  up — the  enemy  proved  too  strong,  and 
we  lost  the  day.  Pope  had  sent  an  earnest  demand  for  supplies  to  McClel- 
lan,  who  answered  that  the  wagons  would  be  loaded,  and  if  Pope  would 
send  a  cavalry  escort,  would  be  sent  forward !  Pope  had  no  cavalry  escort 
to  send,  and  to  secure  supplies  as-  well  as  to  gain  a  safe  position,  withdrew 
his  army  across  Bull  Run  to  Centreville  the  night  following  the  battle. 
At  Centreville  he  was  joined  by  Sumner  and  Franklin ;  but  the  result  of 
the  battle,  and  the  ill-feelings  generated  by  disappointment  had  so  de 
moralized  the  army,  that  it  did  not  seem  safe  to  risk  another  engagement ; 
and  the  whole  army  was  withdrawn  within  the  fortifications. 

"  Thus  the  union  of  the  two  armies  was  consummated.  Will  the  true 
history  of  it  ever  be  known  ?  It  seems  improbable,  for  the  President,  al 
lowing  the  whole  blame  to  fall  on  Pope  and  on  McDowell — who,  though 
superior  in  rank  to  Pope,  had  cheerfully  acted  under  him — allowed  Hal- 
leek  to  relieve  them  both  from  their  respective  commands,  and  he  himself 
gave  the  command  of  the  fortifications  and  the  troops  for  the  defense  of 
Washington  to  McClellan.  It  was  against  my  protest  and  that  of  the 
Secretary  of  War. 

"  Heaven  grant  that  the  issue  may  show  it  was  wisely  done ! " 

To  William  C.  Bryant,  New  York. 

"  WASHINGTON,  September  4,  1862. 

" ....  I  recommended  General  McDowell  as  I  did  General  McClellan ; 
neither  more  warmly,  and  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  take  my  share  with 
others,  who  recommended  them  just  as  I  did,  of  the  responsibility  of 
their  appointment. 

"  My  expectations  of  General  McDowell  have  been  better  satisfied  than 
those  I  formed  of  General  McClellan.  But  the  latter  is  supported  by  the 
enemies  of  the  Administration  and  by  many  of  its  friends :  and  the  Presi 
dent,  declaring  himself  unable  to  do  better,  and  acknowledging  that  he  is 
not  doing  well,  places  McClellan  in  command  of  the  troops  and  fortifica 
tions  around  Washington ;  so  that  for  the  time  being,  at  any  rate,  he  is 
virtually  restored  to  his  former  position  of  commander-in-chie£  .  .  . 

"  For  my  part,  I  know  a  large  part  of  the  truth,  and  my  opinions  are 
unchanged. 

"  McDowell  has  been  unfortunate ;  but  he  is  a  loyal,  brave,  truthful, 
capable  officer.  He  is  a  disciplinarian.  While  he  never  hesitated  to  ap 
propriate  private  property  of  rebels  to  public  use,  he  repressed,  as  far  as 
possible,  private  marauding,  as  incompatible  with  the  laws  of  civilized  war 
fare,  and  as  equally  incompatible  with  the  discipline  and  efficiency  of  troops. 


GENERAL  McDOWELL.  451 

He  believes  that  the  immense  trains  with  which  our  armies  move  are  fatal 
to  rapidity  of  operations,  and  so  dangerous  to  final  success.  He  has 
sought,  therefore,  to  cut  them  down  to  the  lowest-point  compatible  with 
the  effective  condition  of  the  troops.  From  these  two  causes  come  the 
large  share  of  the  complaints  against  him.  Then  he  never  drinks,  or 
smokes,  or  chews,  or  indulges  in  any  kind  of  license.  He  is  serious  and 
earnest.  He  resorts  to  no  arts  for  popularity.  He  is  attended  by  no  clac- 
quers  and  puffers.  He  has  no  political  aims,  and  perhaps  no  very  pro 
nounced  political  principles,  except  the  conviction  that  this  war  sprung 
from  the  influence  of  slavery,  and  that  wherever  slavery  stands  in  the 
way  of  its  successful  prosecution,  slavery  must  get  out  of  the  way.  He  is 
too  indifferent  in  manner,  and  his  officers  are  sometimes  alienated  by  it. 
He  is  too  purely  military  in  his  intercourse  with  his  soldiers.  There  is  an 
apparent  hauteur :  no,  that  is  not  the  word — rough  indifference  expresses 
better  the  idea — in  his  way  toward  them,  that  makes  it  hard  for  them  to 
feel  any  very  warm  personal  sentiments  toward  him,  unless  they  should 
find — what  they  have  not  hitherto  found — that  he  leads  them  successful 
ly,  and  that  the  honor  of  serving  under  him  compensates  for  their 
personal  griefs.  ..." 

To  Colonel  R.  G.  Parsons,  Cleveland,  Ohio. 

"  WASHINGTON,  September  5,  1862. 

"  .  .  .  .  Thank  Benedict  for  his  *  notice.' 

"  I  regret  very  much  that  some  of  our  friends  feel  as  they  do.  My 
judgment  and  conscience  are  satisfied  with  what  I  have  done. 

"  The  rebels  will  not,  I  think,  assail  our  fortifications,  or  attempt  to 
cross  the  Potomac  this  side  or  at  Harper's  Ferry.  They  may  try  higher  up. 

"I  hope  McDowell  will  demand  a  court  of  inquiry.  He  is  atrociously 
abused  and  with  great  effect ;  and  being  a  simple  soldier,  he  has  small 
chance  of  self-defense,  even  if  he  would  attempt  it. 

"  The  last  invention  of  those  who  hate  him  is,  that  his  wife  and  the 
wife  of  Stonewall  Jackson  are  sisters !  An  earlier  one  made  him  my 
brother-in-law ! 

"  He  is  my  friend,  and  I  am  his ;  and  so  long  as  I  believe  him  loyal, 
truthful,  straightforward,  and  honest,  I  shall  remain  his  friend,  whether 
he  succeeds  or  fails  as  a  military  man. 

"  Let  him  as  a  soldier  be  tried  by  the  severest  tests,  and  let  all  others 
be  tried  by  the  same  tests  also.  Let  those  only  who  endure  the  ordeal  be 
put  in  the  lead,  whether  personal  friends  or  personal  enemies.  ..." 

To  Enoch  T.  Carson,  Esq.,  Cincinnati. 

"WASHINGTON,  September  8,  1862. 

"  .  .  .  .  There  is  too  much  ground  for  the  article  in  the  Times  which 
you  sent  me.  It  should  have  observed  more  caution ;  but  I  fear  I  should 
not,  in  the  editorial  chair,  have  followed  my  own  precept.  "We  have  not 
accomplished  what  we  ought  to  have  accomplished.  We  have  put  small 


452  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

forces  wnere  large  forces  were  needed,  and  have  failed  to  improve  advan 
tages — the  advantages  we  obtained.  We  have  preferred  generals  who  do 
little  with  much  to  generals  who  do  much  with  little.  We  blame  and 
praise  with  equal  want  of  reason  and  judgment.  .  .  . 
*•  "  General  McClellan  is  again  virtually  in  chief  command,  and  has  gone 
to  the  field  with  the  army  sent  against  the  rebels  in  Maryland.  This  is 
against  my  judgment,  but,  having  been  overruled,  I  am  endeavoring  to  do 
all  in  my  power  to  secure  success./ McDowell  is  out  of  the  way,  and  so  is 
Pope,  and  so  unity  is  apparently  restored.  The  sacrifice  is  not  too  great : 
for  no  man  should  for  a  moment  be  preferred  to  any  benefit  to  the  coun- 
try...  .» 

From  Mr.  Chase's  Diary,  September  8, 1862. 

"  Nothing  of  financial  moment.  Barney  came  in  and  said  that  Stan- 
ton  and  Wadsworth  had  advised  him  to  leave  for  New  York  this  evening, 
as  communication  with  Baltimore  might  be  cut  off  before  to-morrow.  Mr. 
B.  said  he  would  be  governed  by  my  advice.  Told  him  I  did  not  think 
the  event  probable,  but  that  he  had  best  be  governed  by  the  advice  he 
had  received." 

To  Horace  Greeley. 

"WASHINGTON,  September  12,  1862. 

"  ....  I  cut  a  slip  from  the  Republican  this  morning  about  Mr.  Stan- 
ton.  It  is  less  than  justice  to  him.  He  has  faults  like  other  men ;  but  his 
energy  has  been  all-important  to  us.  ...  There  has  been  no  necessity, 
humanly  speaking,  for  our  ill-success.  Providence  has,  as  I  believe,  con 
founded  our  counsels  because  of  our  complicity  in  crime  against  His  poor. 
Mr.  Stanton's  voice  has  ever  been  on  the  side  of  the  most  vigorous  and 
active  employment  of  all  our  resources,  moral  and  political  as  well  as 
physical.  Not  only  did  he  urge  the  order  to  move  on  the  22d  of  Feb 
ruary,  but  he  proposed  to  the  President  and  myself  the  trip  to  Fortress 
Monroe  in  the  revenue-cutter  Miami ;  he  proposed  and  urged  the  sending 
of  Rogers  up  the  river,  and  the  bombardment  on  the  same  day  of  Sewall's 
Point,  with  a  view  to  the  landing  of  troops  there  by  General  Wool,  and  a 
march  upon  Norfolk ;  he  cordially  seconded  my  proposition  to  take  the 
revenue-cutter  and  go  myself  in  search  of  a  landing  in  Lynch-Haven 
Bay,  when  landing  at  Sewall's  Point  was  pronounced  by  General  Wool 
to  be  impracticable ;  and  when  the  landing  was  found  in  three  or  four 
hours  he  urged  Wool  (nothing  loath,  by-the-way)  to  a  prompt  embarka 
tion  and  march.  The  next  day  witnessed  the  march ;  a  panic,  the  capture 
of  Norfolk,  and  the  following  morning  the  blowing  up  of  the  Merrimac. 
Nothing  of  all  this,  I  verily  believe,  would  have  occurred  but  for  Stanton's 
energy  of  will  and  thought.  ..." 

From  Mr.  Chase's  Diary,  September  12th. 

"Expenses  are  enormous,  increasing  instead  of  diminishing;  ill-suc 
cesses  in  the  field  have  so  affected  Government  stocks  that  it  is  impossible 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.  453 

to  obtain  loans  except  on  temporary  deposit.  We  are  forced  to  rely  on  an 
increased  issue  of  United  States  notes,  which  hurts  almost  as  much  as  it 
helps.  .  .  . 

"  Went  over  to  the  War  Department  about  two.  Found  that  no  im 
portant  intelligence  of  rebel  movements  had  been  received.  The  Secretary 
informed  me  that  lie  had  heard  from  General  II.  that  the  President  is  going 
out  to  see  General  McClellan ;  and  commented  with  some  severity  on  his 
humiliating  submissiveness  to  that  officer.  It  is  indeed  humiliating,  but 
prompted,  I  believe,  by  a  sincere  desire  to  serve  the  country,  and  a  fear 
that,  should  he  supersede  McClellan  by  any  other  commander,  no  advan 
tage  would  be  gained  in  leadership,  but  much  harm  in  the  disaifection  of 
officers  and  troops.  The  truth  is,  I  think,  that  the  President,  with  the 
most  honest  intentions  in  the  world,  and  a  naturally  clear  judgment,  and 
a  true,  unselfish  patriotism,  has  yielded  so  much  to  border  State  and  ne- 
grophobic  counsels,  that  he  now  finds  it  difficult  to  arrest  his  own  descent 
toward  the  most  fatal  concessions.  He  has  already  separated  himself  from 
the  great  body  of  the  party  which  elected  him;  distrusts  most  those  who 
represent  its  spirit,  and  waits.  For  what  ?  " 

From  Mr.  Chase's  Diary,  September  22,  1862. 

"  To  department  about  nine.  State  Department  messenger  came  with 
notice  to  heads  of  departments  to  meet  at  twelve.  Received  sundry  call 
ers.  Went  to  the  White  House.  All  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  in 
attendance.  There  was  some  general  talk,  and  ^he  President  mentioned 
that  Artemus  Ward  had  sent  him  his  book.  Proposed  to  read  a  chapter 
which  he  thought  very  funny.  Read  it,  and  seemed  to  enjoy  it  very 
much  ;  the  heads  also  (except  Stanton).  The  chapter  was  *  High-Handed 
Outrage  at  Utica.' 

"  The  President  then  took  a  graver  tone,  and  said :  *  Gentlemen,  I  have, 
as  you  are  aware,  thought  a  great  deal  about  the  relation  of  this  war  to 
slavery,  and  you  all  remember  that,  several  weeks  ago,  I  read  to  you  an 
order  I  had  prepared  upon  the  subject,  which,  on  account  of  objections 
made  by  some  of  you,  was  not  issued.  Ever  since  then  my  mind  has  been 
much  occupied  with  this  subject,  and  I  have  thought  all  along  that  the 
time  for  acting  on  it  might  probably  come.  I  think  the  time  has  come 
now.  I  wish  it  was  a  better  time.  I  wish  that  we  were  in  a  better  con 
dition.  The  action  of  the  army  against  the  rebels  has  not  been  quite  what 
I  should  have  best  liked.  But  they  have  been  driven  out  of  Maryland, 
and  Pennsylvania  is  no  longer  in  danger  of  invasion.  When  the  rebel 
army  was  at  Frederick  I  determined,  as  soon  as  it  should  be  driven  out 
of  Maryland,  to  issue  a  proclamation  of  emancipation,  such  as  I  thought 
most  likely  to  be  useful.  I  said  nothing  to  any  one,  but  I  made  a  promise 
to  myself  and  (hesitating  a  little)  to  my  Makef .  The  rebel  army  is  now 
driven  out,  and  I  am  going  to  fulfill  that  promise.  I  have  got  you  together 
to  hear  what  I  have  written  down.  I  do  not  wish  your  advice  about  the 


454  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

main  matter,  for  that  I  have  determined  for  myself.  This  I  say  without 
intending  any  thing  but  respect  for  any  one  of  you.  But  I  already  know 
the  views  of  each  on  this  question.  They  have  been  heretofore  expressed, 
and  I  have  considered  them  as  thoroughly  and  carefully  as  I  can.  What 
I  have  written  is  that  which  my  reflections  have  determined  me  to  say. 
If  there  is  any  thing  in  the  expressions  I  use  or  in  any  minor  matter  which 
any  one  of  you  thinks  had  best  be  changed,  I  shall  be  glad  to  receive  your 
suggestions.  One  other  observation  I  will  make.  I  know  very  well  that 
many  others  might,  in  this  matter  as  in  others,  do  better  than  I  can ;  and 
if  I  was  satisfied  that  the  public  confidence  was  more  fully  possessed  by 
any  one  of  them  than  by  me,  and  knew  of  any  constitutional  way  in  which 
he  could  be  put  in  my  place,  he  should  have  it.  I  would  gladly  yield  it 
to  him.  But  though  I  believe  that  I  have  not  so  much  of  the  confidence 
of  the  people  as  I  had  some  time  since,  I  do  not  know  that,  all  things  con 
sidered,  any  other  person  has  more ;  and,  however  this  may  be,  there  is 
no  way  in  which  I  can  have  any  other  man  put  where  I  am.  I  am  here. 
I  must  do  the  best  I  can,  and  bear  the  responsibility  of  taking  the  course 
which  I  feel  I  ought  to  take.' 

"  The  President  then  proceeded  to  read  his  Emancipation  Proclamation, 
making  remarks  on  the  several  parts  as  he  went  on,  and  showing  that  he 
had  fully  considered  the  subject  in  all  the  lights  under  which  it  had  been 
presented  to  him. 

"  After  he  had  closed,  Governor  Seward  said :  * The  general  question 
having  been  decided,  nothing  can  be  said  further  about  that.  Would  it 
not,  however,  make  the  proclamation  more  clear  and  decided  to  leave  out 
all  reference  to  the  act  being  sustained  during  the  incumbency  of  the 
present  President ;  and  not  merely  say  that  the  Government  "recognizes," 
but  that  it  will  maintain  the  freedom  it  proclaims  ? '  * 

"  I  followed,  saying :  *  What  you  have  said,  Mr.  President,  fully  satis 
fies  me  that  you  have  given  to  every  proposition  which  has  been  made  a 
kind  and  candid  consideration.  And  you  have  now  expressed  the  con 
clusion  to  which  you  have  arrived  clearly  and  distinctly.  This  it  was 
your  right,  and,  under  your  oath  of  office,  your  duty  to  do.  The  procla 
mation  does  not,  indeed,  mark  out  the  course  I  would  myself  prefer ;  but 

1  Mr.  Chase  told  me  this :  At  this  meeting  of  the  Cabinet,  after  the  President  had 
said  he  was  prepared  to  hear  suggestions  touching  the  proclamation,  Mr.  Seward 
proposed  the  change  as  stated  in  the  text,  and  allowed  some  little  time  to  elapse  be 
fore  proposing  that  relating  to  colonization.  The  President  hereupon  asked  Mr. 
Seward  why  he  had  not  proposed  both  changes  at  once  ?  Mr.  Seward  made  some 
not  very  satisfactory  answer.  Mr.  Lincoln  then  said  that  Seward  "  reminded  "  him 
of  a  hired  man  out  West  who  came  to  his  employer  on  a  certain  afternoon,  and  told 
huii  (the  employer)  that  one  of  a  favorite  yoke  of  oxen  had  fallen  down  dead.  After 
a  pause,  the  hired  man  added,  "  And  the  other  ox  in  that  team  is  dead,  too."  "  Why 
didn't  you  tell  me  at  once  that  both  the  oxen  were  dead  ?  "  "  Because,"  answered 
the  hired  man,  "  I  didn't  want  to  hurt  you  by  telling  you  too  much  at  one  time ! " 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.  455 

I  am  ready  to  take  it  just  as  it  is  written  and  to  stand  by  it  with  all  my 
heart.  I  think,  however,  the  suggestions  of  Governor  Seward  very  judi 
cious,  and  shall  be  glad  to  have  them  adopted.' 

"  The  President  then  asked  us  severally  our  opinions  as  to  the  modifi 
cations  proposed,  saying  that  he  did  not  care  much  about  the  phrases  he 
had  used.  Every  one  favored  the  modification,  and  it  was  adopted.  Gov 
ernor  Seward  then  proposed  that  in  the  passage  relating  to  colonization 
some  language  should  be  introduced  to  show  that  the  colonization  pro 
posed  was  to  be  only  with  the  consent  of  the  colonists,  and  the  consent  of 
the  States  in  which  the  colonies  might  be  attempted.  This,  too,  was 
agreed  to  ;  and  no  other  modification  was  proposed.  Mr.  Blair  then  said 
that  the  question  having  been  decided,  he  would  make  no  objection  to 
issuing  the  proclamation ;  but  he  would  ask  to  have  his  paper,  presented 
some  days  since,  against  the  policy,  filed  with  the  proclamation.  The 
President  consented  to  this  readily.  And  then  Mr.  Blair  went  on  to  say 
that  he  was  afraid  of  the  influence  of  the  proclamation  on  the  border 
States  and  on  the  army,  and  stated,  at  some  length,  the  grounds  of  his 
apprehensions.  He  disclaimed  most  expressly,  however,  all  objections  to 
emancipation  per  se,  saying  he  had  always  been  personally  in  favor  of  it — 
always  ready  for  immediate  emancipation  in  the  midst  of  slave  States, 
rather  than  submit  to  the  perpetuation  of  the  system." 

To  St&rne  CUttenden,  New  York. 

"  WASHINGTON,  September  27,  1862. 

"  I  must  not,  as  you  will  at  once  perceive,  attempt  to  control  the  offi 
cers  of  Government,  appointed  through  this  Department,  in  the  selection 
of  deputies  and  employe's.  Such  control  would  impair  the  responsibility 
essential  to  faithful  administration. 

"  It  is  not  improper  for  me  to  say,  however,  that  in  my  judgment,  men 
disabled  from  ordinary  labors  by  wounds  received  in  brave  service  to  their 
country  on  the  field,  ought  to  be  preferred,  when  qualified,  in  such  selec 
tions.  No  one  would  be  more  gratified  than  myself  to  see  this  rule 
adopted  by  all  officers  charged  with  the  duty  of  making  subordinate  ap 
pointments.  ..." 

To  General  0.  JI.  Mitchell. 

"  WASHINGTON,  October  4,  1862. 

" ....  I  have  read  with  great  attention  both  your  letters,  and  have 
had  some  conversation  with  the  Sectetary  of  War  in  relation  to  them.  He 
is  extremely  desirous,  and  so  am  I,  that  you  should  be  strengthened  so  as 
to  enable  you  to  accomplish  important  results ;  and  I  trust  the  time  is  not 
distant  when  this  will  be  done. 

"  You  will  pardon  me  if  I  frankly  say  that  I  think  you  err  in  desiring 
to  come  North  with  the  best  troops  of  the  department.  All  our  wishes 
point  exactly  the  other  way.  In  my  judgment,  our  success  for  the  next 


456  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

three  months  must  be  chiefly  on  the  coasts  of  the  Atlantic  and  the  Gulf, 
and  they  must  be  achieved  in  connection  with  an  honest  and  thorough 
execution  of  the  Confiscation  Law  and  a  wise  system  for  the  military  and 
civic  employment  of  the  loyal  black  population. 

"I  have  read  attentively  what  you  say  on  the  subject  of  prejudice  in 
the  army  against  the  military  employment  of  the  blacks.  It  may  not  be 
wise  altogether  to  disregard  it.  Perhaps  the  idea  which  you  suggest  of  a 
separate  establishment  on  one  of  the  islands  for  the  military  organization 
of  these  natives  of  South  Carolina  may  be  expedient ;  but  I  am  very  sure 
that  a  great  deal  may  be  done  by  firm  and  judicious  speech  and  action,  to 
allay  if  not  entirely  remove  this  prejudice.  It  will  not  do  to  give  it  free 
course  and  yield  to  it  a  passive  submission.  The  demoralization  thus  pro 
duced  would  be  as  much  to  be  regretted  as  any  that  could  be  caused  by 
the  most  unrestricted  employment  of  the  blacks. 

"  It  is  not  true,  as  some  allege,  that  any  disproportionate  care  has  been 
shown  toward  the  blacks.  It  is  a  mean  spirit  which  dictates  such  expres 
sions.  The  blacks  have  been  employed  as  laborers,  at  the  most  meagre  of  all 
possible  compensations.  Those  who  were  organized  into  military  companies 
were  never  paid,  from  the  want  of  any  order  of  the  War  Department  to  that 
effect.  So  far  from  having  been  preferred  in  any  respect,  the  commonest 
duties  toward  them  have  either  not  been  performed  at  all,  or  ill  performed. 

"  In  conversation  with  the  Secretary  of  War  in  relation  to  General  Sax- 
ton,  he  informed  me  that  General  Saxton's  duties  were  "not  independent  of 
you  as  the  commander  of  the  department,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  he  was 
to  report  to  you  and  act  in  general  subordination  to  the  military  adminis 
tration  of  the  department.  I  know  so  well  General  Saxton's  loyalty  and 
judgment,  that  I  am  sure  you  can  have  no  difficulty  with  him,  but  will 
find  cordial  and  efficient  cooperation,  unless,  indeed — which,  of  course,  can 
not  be  anticipated — you  should  take  part  with  the  insubordinates  who  seek 
to  thwart  the  policy  of  the  Government,  as  declared  in  the  President's 
proclamation  and  otherwise,  in  respect  to  the  only  class  of  the  Southern 
population  who  really  sympathize  with  the  efforts  of  the  Government  to 
suppress  the  insurrection. 

"  I  thought  the  other  day,  that  I  had  secured  your  old  brigade  to  you, 
and  to  General  Garfield,  who,  I  understand,  is  to  be  sent  into  your  depart 
ment,  his.  Both  brigades  are  now  at  or  near  Louisville,  I  believe.  I  do 
not  yet  give  up  the  hope  of  accomplishing  this." 

To  21.  C.  Kirk,  of  Ohio. 

"WASHINGTON,  October  6,  1862. 

" .  .  .  .  We  have  spent  large  sums  of  money  and  sacrificed  a  vast  number 
of  precious  lives,  without  counting  the  shattered  constitutions  and  the 
maimed  limbs  of  multitudes  of  survivors ;  and  yet  we  seem  to  be  still  far 
from  the  final  issue.  I  cannot  doubt  what  the  final  issue  will  be.  The 
vast  preparation  now  making  both  by  land  and  sea,  insure  success,  unless 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN  AGAIN.  457 

God  takes  sides  against  us.  We  shall  soon  have  iron-clad  ships  enough  to 
batter  down  any  fortress,  and  take  any  town  on  the  coast,  from  Norfolk  to 
Brownsville.  Our  army,  in  numbers,  equipment,  and  military  character^ 
surpasses  greatly  any  which  the  enemy  can  bring  into  the  field.  I  tremble 
when  I  think  how  a  storm  may  wreck  our  iron-clads,  and  feebleness  in 
counsel  and  action  ruin  our  army ;  but  I  trust  that  God  has  not  willed  the 
destruction  of  the  American  Republic,  and  with  more  confidence  since  the 
President  has  placed  the  power  of  the  Government  unequivocally  on  the 
side  of  justice  to  the  oppressed.  ..." 

To  General  John  Cochrane. 

u  WASHINGTON,  Octob&r  18,  1862. 

u.  .  .  .  My  indisposition  has  prevented  me  from  much  intercourse 
with  other  members  of  the  Administration,  so  that  I  have  not  been  able  to 
ascertain  the  condition  of  opinion  in  relation  to  the  measures  you  pro 
posed  to  me. 

"  It  has  of  course  been  impossible  for  me  to  visit  headquarters ;  nor 
do  I  think  it  would  be  exactly  delicate  for  me  to  do  so  without  an  invita 
tion. 

"My  judgment  in  respect  to  the  course  demanded  by  the  public  inter 
est  remains  unchanged.  No  man  can  lament  General  McClellan's  want  of 
success  more  than  I  do.  No  man  has  labored  more  sincerely  and  earnestly 
to  supply  the  means  of  success.  No  man  would  more  sincerely  rejoice  if 
now,  by  a  series  of  prompt  and  decisive  movements,  he  might  more  than 
retrieve  all  he  has  lost  in  the  judgments  of  sincere  and  judicious  and  patri 
otic  men. 

"  My  longing  and  my  prayer  is,  for  the  salvation  of  the  country.  He 
whom  God  may  honor  as  the  instrument  of  its  salvation,  whoever  he  may 
be,  shall  be  my  hero.  Magnus-mihi  erit  Apollo. 

14  General  McClellan  will  remember  my  talks  with  him  of  a  year  ago — 
how  I  told  him  then  of  the  necessity  of  sharp  and  decisive  action  to  my 
ability  to  provide  the  means  to  carry  on  the  war.  By  miracles  almost  I 
have  been  enabled  to  get  on  this  far,  notwithstanding  our  disasters.  But 
the  miracles  cannot  be  repeated ;  and  I  see  financial  disaster  imminent.  I 
dare  not  say  all  I  feel  and  fear.  My  hope  is  in  the  prompt  and  successful 
use  of  all  the  immense  resources  in  men  and  means  now  provided." 

To  General  Lovell  H.  Rousseau. 

*'  WASHINGTON,  October  25,  1862. 

"  ....  I  congratulate  you  on  your  deserved  promotion,  and  on  the 
confidence  your  brave  and  manly  course  has  won  for  you.  I  earnestly  hope 
that  higher  distinction,  if  not  higher  position,  awaits  you. 

"The  fearlessness  which  did  not  hesitate  to  avow  uncompromising 
Unionism  in  a  timid  Senate,  and  prompted  the  declaration  that  slavery 


458  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

must  not  stand  in  the  way  of  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion,  has  made 
your  name  honored  by  multitudes.  May  your  services  and  honors  in 
crease !  ..." 

To  General  William  S.  Rosecrans. 

"  WASHINGTON,  October  25,  1S62. 

"  ....  I  have  contributed  but  little  to  your  advancement.  It  was  in 
my  power  to  secure  your  original  appointment  as  brigadier.  To  the  proofs 
you  have  given  of  your  capacity  and  courage,  and  the  readiness  of  the 
Secretary  of  War  to  recognize  those  qualities,  you  owe  your  subsequent 
advancement.  You  have  had  my  good  wishes  and  my  good  words,  and  I 
ascribe  little  to  either.  You  are  my  debtor  for  little  more  than  friend 
ship.  .  .  . 

"  I  suppose  that  the  rebels  for  the  most  part  have  left  Kentucky.  Now, 
then,  for  East  Tennessee ! — the  grand  central  fortress ;  the  key  to  the  whole 
position  of  the  rebellion.  Get  East  Tennessee,  my  dear  general !  get  pos 
session  of  East  Tennessee  as  rapidly  as  possible.  Make  that  vast  natural 
fortress  ours  and  yours.  Deliver  the  loyalists  of  the  mountains,  who  have 
cried  to  us  so  long  in  vain.  Then  you  may  almost  choose  where  to  strike. 
The  rebel  artery  will  be  cut — the  great  east  and  west  line  which  has  been 
their  strength  and  our  weakness.  Your  communications  can  easily  and 
securely  be  kept  open  with  the  Ohio  Kiver,  and  with  perhaps  a  little  more 
difficulty,  with  the  Mississippi  at  Memphis.  ..." 

To  John  Young,  Esq.,  Cincinnati. 

"  WASHINGTON,  October  2T,  1S62. 

"  .  .  .  .  I  do  not  wonder  that  dissatisfaction  prevails.  The  President, 
from  the  purest  motives,  committed  the  management  of  the  war  almost 
exclusively  to  his  political  opponents.  In  the  honesty  of  his  heart,  he 
thought  that  in  the  presence  of  great  danger  to  the  country  all  political 
differences  might  be  safely  disregarded.  Unfortunately,  those  whom  he 
has  trusted  have  not  sympathized  with  him  in  the  conduct  of  the  war. 
While  he  has  been  urging  action,  they  have  been  making  excuses  for 
delays.  The  great  error  has  been  that  he  received  these  excuses  and  toler 
ated  inaction.  I  have  long  remonstrated  against  it,  and  predicted  its  in 
evitable  consequences.  It  is  within  a  few  days  of  a  year,  since  I  strongly 
urged  prompt  action  on  McClellan,  and  received  his  positive  assurances 
that  prompt  action  should  be  had.  When  General  Halleck  came,  I  urged 
upon  him  the  necessity  of  opening  the  Mississippi  and  driving  the  rebels 
from  East  Tennessee,  and  giving  a  brave  and  able  general  to  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac.  He  promised  nothing,  and  did  it.  I  think,  however,  that 
at  last  the  President  is  thoroughly  aroused.  The  appointment  of  Rose- 
crans  is  a  specimen  of  what  may  be  looked  for.  Active  preparations  are 
now  making  for  striking  every  point  in  rebeldom  that  can  be  reached,  and 
I  shall  be  greatly  disappointed  if  within  the  next  three  months  it  does  not 
become  clear  to  the  whole  world  that  rebellion  cannot  prosper,  but  will 


ADMISSION  OF  WEST  VIRGINIA.  459 

be  suppressed.  It  is  sad  to  think  of  the  delay  and  inaction  which  have 
marked  the  past,  but  I  am  confident  that  it  will  not  characterize  the 
future.  ..." 

To  the  President. 

"  WASHINGTON,  December  29, 1862. 

"  .  .  .  .  My  thoughtful  attention  has  been  given  to  the  question  which 
you  proposed  to  me  as  head  of  one  of  the  departments,  touching  the  act 
of  Congress  admitting  the  State  of  "West  Virginia  into  the  Union.  The 
questions  proposed  are  two : 

"  1.  Is  the  act  constitutional  ? 

"  2.  Is  the  act  expedient  ? 

"  1.  In  my  judgment  the  act  is  constitutional. 

"  In  the  convention  which  framed  the  Constitution  the  formation  of  new 
States  was  a  subject  much  considered.  Some  of  the  ablest  men  in  the 
convention,  including  all  or  nearly  all  the  delegates  from  Maryland,  Dela 
ware,  and  New  Jersey,  insisted  that  Congress  should  have  power  to  form 
new  States  within  the  limits  of  existing  States,  without  the  consent  of  the 
latter.  All  agreed  that  Congress  should  have  the  power  with  that  consent. 
The  result  of  deliberation  was  the  grant  to  Congress  of  a  general  power  to 
admit  new  States,  with  a  limit  on  its  exercise  in  respect  to  States  formed 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  old  States,  or  by  the  junction  of  old  States,  or 
parts  of  them,  to  cases  of  consent  by  the  Legislatures  of  all  the  States 
concerned. 

"  The  power  of  Congress  to  admit  the  State  of  West  Virginia,  formed 
within  the  existing  State  of  Virginia,  is  clear,  if  the  consent  of  the  Legis 
lature  of  the  State  of  Virginia  has  been  given.  That  this  consent  has 
been  given  cannot  be  denied,  unless  the  whole  action  of  the  executive  and 
legislative  branches  of  the  Federal  Government,  during  the  last  eighteen 
months,  has  been  mistaken,  and  is  now  to  be  reversed. 

"  In  April,  1861,  a  convention  of  citizens  of  Virginia  assumed  to  pass 
an  ordinance  of  secession;  called  in  rebel  troops,  and  made  common 
cause  with  an  insurrection  which  had  broken  out  against  the  Government 
of  the  United  States.  Most  of  the  persons  exercising  the  functions  of  the 
State  government  in  Virginia  joined  the  rebels,  and  refused  to  perform  their 
duties  to  the  Union  they  had  sworn  to  protect.  They  thus  abdicated 
their  power  of  government  in  respect  to  the  United  States.  But  a  large 
portion  of  the  people,  a  number  of  the  members  of  the  Legislature,  and  some 
judicial  officers,  did  not  follow  their  example.  Most  of  the  members  of 
the  Legislature,  who  remained  faithful  to  their  oaths,  met  at  Wheeling, 
and  reconstituted  the  government  of  Virginia,  and  elected  Senators  in  Con 
gress,  who  now  occupy  seats  as  such.  Under  this  reconstituted  govern 
ment  a  Governor  has  been  elected,  who  now  exercises  executive  authority 
thraughout  the  State,  except  so  far  as  he  is  excluded  by  armed  rebellion. 
By  repeated  and  significant  acts,  the  Government  of  the  United  States  has 
recognized  this  government  of  Virginia  as  the  only  legal  and  constitutional 
government  of  the  whole  State. 


460  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  And  in  my  judgment,  no  other  course  than  this  was  open  to  the 
national  Government.  In  every  case  of  insurrection  involving  the  persons 
exercising  the  powers  of  State  government,  where  a  large  body  of  the  peo 
ple  remain  faithful,  that  body,  so  far  as  the  Union  is  concerned,  must  be 
taken  to  constitute  the  State.  It  would  have  been  as  absurd  as  it  would 
have  been  impolitic,  to  deny  to  the  large  loyal  population  of  Virginia 
the  powers  of  a  State  government,  because  men,  whom  they  had  clothed 
with  executive  or  legislative  or  judicial  powers,  had  betrayed  their  trusts 
and  joined  in  rebellion  against  the  country. 

"  It  does  not  admit  of  doubt,  therefore,  as  it  seems  to  me,  that  the 
Legislature  which  gave  its  consent  to  the  formation  and  erection  of  the 
State  of  West  Virginia,  was  the  true  and  only  lawful  Legislature  of  the  State 
of  Virginia.  The  Madison  Papers  clearly  show  that  the  consent  of  the 
Legislature  of  the  original  State  was  the  only  consent  required  to  the  erec 
tion  and  formation  of  a  new  State  within  its  jurisdiction.  That  consent 
having  been  given,  the  consent  of  the  new  State,  if  required,  is  proved  by 
her  application  for  admission. 

"Nothing  required  by  the  Constitution  to  the  formation  and  admis 
sion  of  West  Virginia  into  the  United  States  is,  therefore,  wanting ;  and 
the  act  of  admission  must,  necessarily,  be  constitutional. 

"  Nor  is  this  conclusion  technical,  as  some  may  think.  The  Legislature 
of  Virginia,  it  may  be  admitted,  did  not  contain  many  members  from  the 
eastern  counties.  It  contained,  however,  representatives  from  all  the 
counties  whose  inhabitants  were  not  either  rebels  themselves,  or  dominated 
by  greater  numbers  of  rebels.  It  was  the  only  Legislature  of  the  State 
known  to  the  Union.  If  its  consent  was  not  valid,  no  consent  could  be. 
If  its  consent  was  not  valid,  the  Constitution,  as  to  the  people  of  West 
Virginia,  has  been  so  suspended  by  the  rebellion  that  a  most  important 
right  under  it  has  been  utterly  lost. 

"It  is  safer,  in  my  opinion,  to  follow  plain  principles  to  plain  conclu 
sions,  than  to  turn  aside  from  consequences,  clearly  logical,  because  not 
exactly  agreeable  to  our  views  of  expediency. 

"  2.  And  this  brings  me  to  the  second  question :  Is  the  act  of  admis 
sion  expedient  ? 

"The  act  is  almost  universally  regarded  as  of  vital  importance  to  their 
welfare,  by  the  loyal  people  most  immediately  interested,  and  it  has  re 
ceived  the  sanction  of  large  majorities  in  both  Houses  of  Congress.  These 
facts  afford  strong  presumptions  of  expediency. 

"It  is,  moreover,  well  known  that  for  many  years  the  people  of  West 
Virginia  have  desired  separation  on  good  and  substantial  grounds ;  nor  do 
I  perceive  any  good  reason  to  believe  that  consent  to  such  separation  would 
now  be  withheld  by  a  Legislature  actually  elected  from  all  the  counties  of 
the  State,  and  untouched  by  rebel  sympathies. 

"However  this  may  be,  much — very  much — is  due  to  the  desires  and 
convictions  of  the  loyal  people  of  West  Virginia.  To  them  admission  is 
an  object  of  intense  interest;  and  their  conviction  is  strongly  expressed 


EMANCIPATION  MATTERS.  461 

that  the  veto  of  the  act  and  its  consequent  failure  would  result  in  the  pro 
found  discouragement  of  all  loyal  men  and  the  proportionate  elation  and 
joy  of  every  sympathizer  with  rebellion.  Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that 
such  a  veto  will  be  regarded  by  many  as  an  abandonment  of  the  views 
which  have  hitherto  guided  the  action  of  the  national  Government  in  rela 
tion  to  Virginia ;  will  operate  as  a  sort  of  disavowal  of  the  loyal  govern 
ment,  and  may  be  followed  by  its  disorganization.  No  act,  not  impera 
tively  demanded  by  constitutional  duty,  should  be  performed  by  the  Ex 
ecutive  if  likely  to  be  attended  by  consequences  like  these. 

"  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  the  admission  of  West  Virginia  may 
draw  after  it  the  necessity  of  admitting  other  States  under  the  consent  of 
extemporized  Legislatures  assuming  to  act  for  whole  States,  though  really 
representing  no  important  part  of  their  territory.  I  think  this  an  imagi 
nary  necessity.  There  is  no  such  Legislature,  nor  is  there  likely  to  be.  No 
such  Legislature,  if  extemporized,  is  likely  to  receive  the  recognition  either 
of  Congress  or  the  Executive.  The  case  of  West  Virginia  will  form  no 
evil  precedent.  Far  otherwise.  It  will  encourage  the  loyal  by  the  assur 
ance  it  will  give  of  the  national  recognition  and  support ;  but  it  will  in 
spire,  no  hopes  that  the  national  Government  will  countenance  needless  and 
unreasonable  attempts  to  break  or  impair  the  integrity  of  States.  If  a  case 
parallel  to  that  of  West  Virginia  shall  present  itself,  it  will  doubtless  be 
entitled  to  like  consideration ;  but  the  contingency  of  such  a  case  is  surely 
too  remote  to  countervail  all  the  considerations  of  expediency  which  sus 
tain  the  act. 

"  My  answer  to  both  questions  is,  therefore,  affirmative.  ..." 

To  the  President. 

""WASHINGTON,  December  31,  1862. 

".  .  .  .  In  accordance  with  your  verbal  direction  of  yesterday,  I  most 
respectfully  submit  the  following  observations  in  respect  to  the  draft  of  a 
proclamation  designating  the  States  and  parts  of  States  within  which  the 
proclamation  of  September  22,  1862,  is  to  take  effect  according  to  the 
terms  thereof. 

"  I.  It  seems  to  me  wisest  to  make  no  exceptions  of  parts  of  States 
from  the  operation  of  the  proclamation  other  than  the  forty-eight  coun 
ties  of  West  Virginia.  My  reasons  are  these : 

"  1.  Such  exceptions  will  impair,  in  the  public  estimation,  the  moral 
effect  of  the  proclamation,  and  invite  censures  which  it  would  be  well,  if 
possible,  to  avoid. 

"  2.  Such  exceptions  must  necessarily  be  confined  to  some  few  parishes 
and  counties  in  Louisiana  and  Virginia  and  can  have  no  practically  useful 
effect.  Through  the  operation  of  various  acts  of  Congress,  the  slaves  of 
disloyal  masters  in  those  parts  are  already  enfranchised,  and  the  slaves  of 
loyal  masters  are  practically  so.  Some  of  the  latter  have  already  com 
menced  paying  wages  to  their  laborers,  formerly  slaves ;  and  it  is  to  be 


462  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

feared  that  if,  by  exceptions,  slavery  is  practically  reestablished  in  favor 
of  some  masters,  while  abolished  by  law  and  by  the  necessary  effect  of 
military  occupation  as  to  others,  very  serious  inconveniences  may  arise. 

"  3.  No  intimation  of  exceptions  of  this  kind  is  given  in  the  September 
proclamation,  nor  does  it  appear  that  any  intimations  otherwise  given  have 
been  taken  into  account  by  those  who  have  participated  in  recent  elections, 
or  that  any  exceptions  of  their  particular  localities  are  desired  by  them. 

"  II.  I  think  it  would  be  expedient  to  omit  from  the  proposed  proc 
lamation,  the  declaration  that  the  Executive  Government  of  the  United 
States  will  do  no  act  to  repress  the  enfranchised  in  any  efforts  they  may 
make  for  their  actual  freedom.  This  clause  in  the  September  proclamation 
has  been  widely  quoted  as  an  incitement  to  servile  insurrection.  In  lieu 
of  it,  and  for  the  purpose  of  refuting  these  misrepresentations,  I  think  it 
would  be  well  to  insert  some  such  clause  as  this:  '•Not  encouraging  or 
countenancing,  however,  any  disorderly  or  licentious  violence.'1  If  this  altera 
tion  he  made,  the  appeal  to  the  enslaved  may,  properly  enough,  be  omitted. 
It  does  not  seem  to  be  necessary,  and  may  furnish  a  topic  to  the  evil-dis 
posed  for  criticism  and  ridicule. 

"  III.  I  think  it  absolutely  certain  that  the  rebellion  can  in  no  way  be 
so  certainly,  speedily,  and  economically  suppressed,  as  by  the  organized 
military  force  of  the  loyal  population  of  the  insurgent  region,  of  whatever 
complexion.  In  no  way  can  irregular  violence  and  servile  insurrection 
be  so  surely  prevented,  as  by  the  regular  organization  and  regular  mili 
tary  employment  of  those  who  might  otherwise  probably  resort  to  such 
courses. 

"  Such  organization  is  now  in  successful  progress ;  and  the  concurrent 
testimony  of  all  connected  with  the  colored  regiments  in  Louisiana  and 
South  Carolina  is  that  they  are  brave,  orderly,  and  efficient.  General 
Butler  declares  that  without  his  colored  regiments  he  could  not  have  at 
tempted  his  recent  important  movements  in  the  La  Fourche  region,  and 
General  Saxton  bears  equally  explicit  testimony  to  the  good  conduct  and 
efficiency  of  the  colored  troops  recently  sent  on  an  expedition  along  the 
coast  of  Georgia. 

"  Considering  these  facts,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  would  be  best  to  omit 
from  the  proclamation  all  reference  to  the  military  employment  of  the  en 
franchised  population,  leaving  it  to  the  natural  course  of  things  already 
well  begun ;  or,  to  state  distinctly,  that  in  order  to  secure  the  suppression 
of  rebellion  without  servile  insurrection  or  licentious  marauding,  such 
numbers  of  the  population  declared  free,  as  may  be  found  convenient,  will 
be  employed  in  the  military  and  naval  service  of  the  United  States. 

"  Finally,  I  respectfully  suggest  that  on  an  occasion  of  such  interest 
there  can  be  no  just  imputation  of  affectation  against  a  solemn  recognition 
of  responsibility  before  men  and  before  God,  and  that  some  such  close  as 
follows  will  be  proper : 

"  '  And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice,  war- 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.  463 

ranted  by  the  Constitution,  and  of  duty,  demanded  by  the  circumstances 
of  the  country,  I  invoke  the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind  and  the 
gracious  favor  of  Almighty  God.' " 

With  this  letter  Mr.  Chase  submitted  to  the  President  a 
draft  of  a  proclamation  which  embodied  the  ideas  expressed  in 
the  letter.  That  draft  was  as  follows  : 

"  Whereas,  On  the  twenty-second  day  of  September,  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-two,  a  proclamation  was 
issued  by  the  President  of  the  United  States,  containing,  among  other 
things,  the  following,  to  wit :  (Here  inserting  certain  paragraphs  from  that 
proclamation ;  then  continuing :) 

"  '  Now,  therefore,  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States, 
by  virtue  of  the  power  in  me  vested  as  commander-in-chief  of  the  army 
and  navy  of  the  United  States  in  time  of  actual  armed  rebellion  against 
the  authority  and  Government  of  the  United  States,  and  as  a  proper  and 
necessary  war-measure  for  suppressing  said  rebellion,  do,  on  this  first  day 
of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty- 
three,  and  in  accordance  with  my  intention  so  to  do  publicly  proclaimed 
for  one  hundred  days,  as  aforesaid,  order  and  designate  as  the  States  and 
parts  of  States  in  which  the  people  thereof  are  this  day  in  rebellion  against 
the  United  States,  the  following,  to  wit : 

"  '  Arkansas,  Texas,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Alabama,  Florida,  Georgia, 
South  Carolina,  North  Carolina,  and  Virginia,  except  the  forty-eight  coun 
ties  designated  as  West  Virginia. 

"  *  And,  by  virtue  of  the  power  and  for  the  purpose  aforesaid,  I  do 
order  and  declare  that  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within  said  designated 
States,  and  parts  of  States,  are,  and  henceforth  forever  shall  be,  FEEE  ;  and 
that  the  Executive  Government  of  the  United  States,  including  the  mili 
tary  and  naval  authorities,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the  freedom  of 
said  persons — not,  however,  encouraging  or  in  any  way  sanctioning  any 
disorderly  conduct  or  licentious  violence ;  to  prevent  which,  and  secure 
the  earliest  possible  termination  of  the  insurrection  with  the  least  possible 
injury  to  persons  and  property,  such  portions  of  the  population  hereby 
declared  free  as  may  be  found  convenient  and  useful  will  be  employed, 
under  suitable  organization,  in  the  military  and  naval  service  of  the 
United  States,  as  well  as  in  other  avocations  for  which  they  may  be 
adapted  and  required. 

"  'And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice,  war 
ranted  by  the  Constitution,  and  an  act  of  duty  demanded  by  the  circum 
stances  of  the  country,  I  invoke  the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind  and 
the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty  God.'  " 

In  the  proclamation  ;ssued  by  the  President  on  the  1st  of 


464  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

January,  1863,  lie  adopted  the  closing  sentence  proposed  by  Mr. 
Chase  (his  own  draft  contained  no  such  expression),  but  modi 
fied  thus :  "  And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act 
of  justice,  warranted  by  the  Constitution,  upon  military  neces 
sity^  I  invoke  the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind  and  the 
gracious  favor  of  Almighty  God." 


CHAPTEE  XLIY. 

ME.     CHASE     AND     THE     WAE. 
1863. 

To  Major  Ralston  Skinner,  with  General  Rosecrans. 

"  WASHINGTON,  January  6,  1868. 

"  .  .  .  .  "TTTHEN  I  read  of  the  death  of  poor  Garesche"  I  trembled  for 
VV     you;  but  as  the  telegraph  does  not  report  you  wounded 
or  missing,  I  suppose  you  are  safe  and  am  thankful. 

"  The  success  of  Rosecrans  has  lifted  a  fearful  weight  from  the  breast 
of  the -country,  and  it  seems  to  me  the  success  was  emphatically  his.  To 
be  sure,  his  brave  officers  and  -men  were  indispensable,  but,  as  I  read  the 
accounts,  his  own  genius  and  courage,  and  indefatigable  persistence,  won 
the  day.  You  can  scarcely  imagine  what  a  personal  gratification  it  is  to 
me ;  but  the  personal  gratification  is  nothing  compared  with  that  which 
the  benefit  to  the  country  inspires.  ..." 

To  William  Curtis  Noyes,  New  Y&rk. 

"WASHINGTON,  April  7,  1863. 

"  .  .  .  .  The  point  to  which  I  wish  to  draw  your  attention  is  this  :  It 
seems  to  me  that  in  no  way  can  a  greater  good  be  accomplished  just  now 
than  by  the  organization  of  a  National  Emancipation  Commission,  which 
shall  charge  itself  with  the  well-being  of  the  emancipated  blacks  in  the 
States  to  which  the  proclamation  applies ;  in  States  also  which  may  eman 
cipate  by  voluntary  legislation,  and  in  all  States  where  persons  are  found 
entitled  to  freedom  under  the  acts  of  Congress. 

"  Take,  for  example,  the  present  condition  of  things  on  the  Mississippi. 
Had  our  generals  on  that  river,  ten  months  ago,  enlisted  all  the  able-bodied 
blacks  willing  to  serve  in  military  organizations,  I  believe  we  should  to 
day  hold  possession  of  the  entire  river,  if  indeed  the  whole  rebellion  had 
not  been  practically  subdued.  Had  such  a  commission  as  I  now  suggest 
existed,  charging  itself  with  the  care  of  the  families  of  black  soldiers ; 
with  the  provision  of  lands  for  cultivation  and  homes  for  those  families 
and  to  such  colored  men  as  could  not  enlist ;  and  with — to  some  extent — 
30 


466  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

the  organization  of  the  labor  not  employed  by  Government,  who  can  tell 
what  great  results  might  not  have  followed  ? 

"  So  deeply  did  I  feel  this  at  the  time,  that  I  made  myself— under 
many  disadvantages,  and  with  the  smallest  possible  time  for  the  work — a 
sort  of  commission  for  Port  Royal,  and  its  results  were  not  contemptible, 
though  I  had  to  endure  much  remark  that  was  not  pleasant,  and  with 
little  sympathy  where  I  should  have  found  much. 

"  It  is  not  too  late  to  organize  a  commission  which  shall  do  for  the 
whole  country  what  I  wished  done  for  Port  Royal. 

"  The  beginning  should  be,  I  think,  a  meeting  of  half  a  dozen  gentle 
men  in  New  York :  prudent,  active,  resolute,  patient  men,  who  should 
organize  themselves  as  a  National  Emancipation  Commission.  The  num 
ber  might  be  increased  by  additions  from  other  cities  and  places,  none 
being  admitted  at  first,  except  by  unanimous  consent,  in  order  to  secure 
harmony  and  efficiency.  Admissions  might  afterward  be  made  under 
less  strict  regulations,  being  careful  always  to  secure,  however,  a  united 
and  energetic  administration. 

"  You  are  the  man  to  begin.  Select  your  five  co-workers  from  the  best 
men  in  New  York :  get  together  and  organize.  Then  lay  your  plan  of 
action  before  the  War  Department,  and  I  am  confident  you  will  have  Mr. 
Stanton's  cordial  cooperation.  You  shall  have  mine  and  that  of  my 
agents.  ..." 

To  the  President. 

"  PHILADELPHIA,  April  22,  1S68. 

"  .  .  .  .  My  purpose  in  visiting  Philadelphia  and  New  York  at  this 
time  is  to  ascertain  if  a  loan,  say  of  $50,000,000,  to  pay  off  the  army,  can 
not  now  be  obtained.  The  only  difficulty  I  find  in  the  way  springs  from 
the  painful  uncertainty  generally  prevalent  as  to  the  future  of  the  war. 
Notwithstanding  this,  however,  I  hope  to  succeed;  and  I  am  greatly 
cheered  by  the  resolved  determination  which  appears  to  animate  all  our 
friends.  This  is  a  sentiment  which  can  easily  be  converted  into  tri 
umphant  gladness  by  the  achievement  of  some  important  successes,  and, 
above  all,  by  the  development  of  some  settled  and  promising  plan  for  the 
successful  termination  of  the  contest.  ..." 

To  Major  B.  C.  Ludlow. 

"WASHINGTON,  May  12,  1868. 

"  ....  I  look  at  the  war  under  both  military  and  political  aspects ; 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  military  occupation  should  be  immediately  fol 
lowed  by  political  reconstruction,  in  order  to  secure  permanent  advantages. 
Hence  I  would  select,  as  the  theatre  of  operations,  those  sections  of  the 
hostile  country  in  which  reconstruction  would  be  easiest  and  most  stable. 
Those  sections  are  on  the  Gulf. — I  would  take  Florida,  Alabama,  Louisiana, 
and  Texas,  and  make  free  States  of  them  as  rapidly  as  possible.  I  would 
arm  the  loyal  native  population,  white  and  black,  so  as  to  put  them  into  a 


ARMY  MATTERS  AND  MOVEMENTS.  46? 

condition  of  self-defense.    Then  I  would  push  northward  up  the  Missis 
sippi,  and  southward  into  East  Tennessee  and  the  mountain-regions. 

"  In  some  such  way  as  this,  I  think  the  rebellion  could  be  most  speedily 
and  economically  crushed.  ..." 


To  Major-  General  Hooker. 

"WASHINGTON,  May  14,  1863. 

"  .  .  .  .  "Would  it  not  be  well  to  replace  Sigel  in  command  of  the  Elev 
enth  Corps  ?  I  heard  of  a  letter  written  some  days  before  the  battle  to  a 
friend,  in  which  he  complained  bitterly  of  General  Howard  because  of  his 
interference  with  the  German  ways  of  the  soldiers,  from  motives  of  religious 
duty,  and  predicted  that  the  troops,  from  dissatisfaction,  would  prove  un 
reliable.  .  .  .  Sigel  seems  to  me  earnest  and  capable,  and  certain  it  is  that 
the  Germans  are  devoted  to  him.  Is  it  not  best  to  avail  of  that  special 
strength  which  he  can  give  ?  " 


To  Major-  General  Garfield. 

"WASHINGTON,  May  14,  1863. 

"  .  .  .  .  Rumors  are  rife  of  a  movement  in  Lee's  army.  Since  the  de 
feat  of  May  4th  (Chancellorsville)  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  has  been  quiet ; 
gradually,  indeed,  losing  strength  from  the  expiration  of  the  nine  months' 
terms.  If  Lee  is  actually  moving,  he  -will  find  no  divided  armies  before 
him  as  formerly  under  Pope  and  McClellan,  and  will  have  no  child's  play 
to  encounter.  It  seems  to  me,  indeed,  the  very  thing  to  be  desired,  and  I 
am  confident  Hooker  will  make  him  repent  of  it.  If  Lee  does  not  move, 
I  expect  Hooker  will  soon  take  the  initiative. — The  rumor  of  rebel 
movements  has  certainly  some  support  in  actual  conditions.  Just  after 
the  late  battles,  an  autograph  letter  from  Jefferson  Davis  to  a  Mississippi 
officer  under  Lee,  came  into  our  possession,  in  which  Davis  spoke  of  the 
great  difficulty  of  sending  reinforcements  to  Lee,  though  he  was  anxious 
to  do  so.  The  truth  is,  I  suppose,  that  the  rebels  cannot  much  increase 
their  present  force,  and  that  the  difficulties  of  movement  are  constantly  be 
coming  greater.  Of  course,  as  our  armies  are  everywhere  more  or  less 
weakening  by  the  expiration  of  terms,  the  rebels  are  now  relatively  stronger 
than  they  ever  will  be  again.  If  they  will  take  the  offensive  under  any 
circumstances,  they  will  probably  do  so  now. 

The  enlistment  of  colored  troops  is  going  on  well.  The  Florida  pro 
ject,  which  was  much  discouraged,  seems  now  likely  to  be  realized ;  and 
it  is  not  unlikely  that  colored  troops  will  be  mainly  relied  on  for  its  ac 
complishment.  The  first  regiment  from  Massachusetts  has  already  gone 
to  Port  Royal.  The  second  will  probably  follow  in  less  than  a  fortnight. 
A  regiment  is  being  raised  here  also.  ..." 


468  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

To  Major-  General  HooTcer. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  20,  1563. 

"  .  .  .  .  On  returning  from  your  headquarters,  I  called  on  the  Presi 
dent  and  Secretary  of  "War,  each  of  whom  seemed  gratified  by  what  I  had 
to  state.  My  conviction  is  strong  that  you  will  want  nothing  which  can 
contribute  to  your  success.  I  am  confident  that  General  Halleck  does  not 
entertain  a  thought  or  a  sentiment  which  will  prompt  the  least  embarrass 
ment  of  any  of  your  actions.  If  you  entertain  any  such  apprehension,  let 
me  beg  you  to  dismiss  it  absolutely,  and  call  on  the  commanding  general 
freely  for  what  you  want.  Lay  your  views  unreservedly  before  him,  and 
count  on  his  support ;  I  feel  quite  sure  it  will  not  be  wanting. 

" .  .  .  .  The  President  and  Secretary  of  War  both  expressed  admira 
tion  at  the  prompt  celerity  which  has  distinguished  all  your  movements 
of  troops.  ..." 

To  Miss  Chase. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  25,  1863. 

" .  .  .  .  Matters  are  becoming  more  serious,  though  not  at  all  alarm 
ing,  in  this  region.  The  situation,  as  now  understood,  indicates  that  Lee 
is  about  to  try  an  invasion  of  Maryland,  and  possibly  of  Pennsylvania. 
There  is  an  opinion,  not  held  by  many,  that  he  may  attempt  to  reach  the 
Ohio  at  Pittsburg  or  Wheeling.  Six-miles-a-day  marches  are  over,  how 
ever,  and  he  will  get  no  great  distance  in  any  direction,  without  feeling 
Hooker  strike  him.  The  severe  slaps  in  the  face  he  has  already  received 
at  Brandy  Station  and  at  Aldie  are  samples  in  little  of  what  he  is  to  ex 
pect.  If  God  smiles  on  active  and  earnest  work  on  the  right  side,  Lee 
will  never  take  his  army  back  to  Richmond.  General  Halleck  was  in 
Baltimore  yesterday,  looking  after  matters  there,  and  when  he  returned 
found  Hooker  here,  who  had  ridden  in  to  confer  with  him.  .  .  .  Where 
Hooker  is  this  morning  it  would  be  hard  to  tell.  He  is  certainly  with  his 
army,  and  I  suppose  in  motion.  Where  he  will  be  to-night  I  cannot 
guess ;  but  he  will  be  where  he  thinks  he  can  render  most  service. 

"The  news  from  Vicksburg  is  to  the  18th,  and  all  was  going  on 
well,  as  also  at  Port  Hudson.  .  .  .  Indeed,  every  thing  looks  well  on  all 
sides.  ..." 

To  the  President. 

"  WASHINGTON,  June  28,  1863. 

"  .  .  .  .  There  are  two  or  three  circumstances  which  perhaps  I  should 
have  mentioned,  this  morning,  when  the  subject  of  General  Hooker's  re 
quest  to  be  relieved  was  talked  about.  I  suggested  that  the  request  was 
properly  attributable  to  General  Hooker's  persuasion  that  he  could  not 
rely  on  cordial  cooperation  from  General  Halleck,  and  mentioned  the 
receipt  from  the  latter  by  the  former,  when  I  happened  to  be  with  him, 
of  a  telegram  authorizing  General  Hooker  to  issue  commands  direct  to 
troops  in  the  department  of  General  Heintzelman  and  General  Schenck, 


HOOKER'S  WITHDRAWAL.  469 

from  which  I  drew  an  argument,  which  I  urged  on  General  Hooker,  that 
General  Halleck,  far  from  being  unwilling,  was  really  anxious  to  support  him. 

"  I  forgot  to  say  what  struck  me  at  the  time  the  telegram  came — that 
it  was  quite  general  in  its  terms,  and  did  not  except  from  the  authority 
given  the  troops  essential  for  the  immediate  defense  of  Washington  and 
Baltimore  so  distinctly  as  would  have  been  "desirable. 

"  Might  not  this  written  telegram  have  conveyed  to  General  Hooker  a 
larger  notion  of  his  authority  than  was  intended  ?  I  thought  at  the  time 
that  it  would  lead  to  difficulties  through  misapprehension. 

"  After  the  receipt  of  it,  I  have  learned  at  the  War  Department  that 
General  Hooker  issued  an  order  to  the  general  commanding  at  Alexandria, 
which  was  disobeyed.  General  Hooker  directed  him  to  be  placed  in 
arrest;  but  it  turned  out  that  the  officer  was  simply  obeying  an  order  from 
General  Heintzelman,  at  headquarters  of  the  army,  to  disregard  all  orders 
not  proceeding  from  one  or  the  other  of  these  sources.  You  will  readily 
understand  what  distrust  this  conflict  of  orders  might  give  rise  to.  A 
day  or  longer  afterward,  General  Hooker  ordered  the  commanding  officer 
at  Poolesville  to  proceed  to  Harper's  Ferry.  I  believe  the  order  was 
obeyed ;  but  just  such  an  order  as  was  addressed  to  the  commanding  offi 
cer  at  Alexandria,  was  addressed  to  General  Heintzelman  at  headquarters, 
was  addressed  to  the  commanding  officer  (Colonel  Jewett,  I  believe)  at 
Poolesville ;  this  act,  again,  was  most  unfortunately  calculated  to  impair 
confidence. 

"Then,  finally,  came  the  order  detaining  a  large  force  at  Harper's 
Ferry  against  General  Hooker's  urgent  call  for  them  in  his  advance.  I 
know  nothing  of  the  military  reasons  for  it ;  but  can  easily  imagine  that 
an  army  occupying  a  position  like  that  of  the  Maryland  Heights  would  be 
of  little  use,  when  the  main  army  was  in  advance  of  them  and  would  fall 
back  and  reoccupy  the  position  should  it  become  necessary. 

"  I  mention  these  matters  for  your  consideration,  and  in  order  that  no 
injustice  may  be  done  to  anybody.  ..." 

To  Miss  Chase. 

44  "WASHINGTON,  June  29, 1868. 

"  .  .  .  .  You  must  have  been  greatly  astonished  to  hear  that  General 
Hooker  was  relieved ;  but  your  astonishment  could  not  have  exceeded 
mine.  It  was  at  his  own  request ;  and  the  request  must  have  been  very 
suddenly  resolved  upon,  for  his  telegram  asking  to  be  relieved  was  dated 
at  eight  o'clock  on  Saturday  night,  and  I  received  one  from  Butterfield 
dated  at  six,  or  half-past,  suggesting  some  military  movements  in  Vir 
ginia,  in  which  there  was  not  the  slightest  allusion  to  Hooker's  purpose. 
What  prompted  the  request  I  do  not  know.  I  did  not  hear  of  it,  nor  of 
the  appointment  of  Meade  in  his  place,  till  Sunday,  when,  at  a  meeting 
of  the  heads,  called  for  a  different  purpose,  having  no  connection  with 
Hooker's  affairs,  the  President  mentioned  it  to  us. 


470  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

"  I  understand  that  General  Meade  is  preferred  by  the  majority  of  the 
officers  of  the  army  to  any  one  except  Hooker,  and  perhaps  now  to  him. 
General  Meade  was  at  once  notified  of  his  appointment,  and,  though 
taken  entirely  by  surprise,  accepted  it  in  a  modest  telegram,  and  at  once 
entered  upon  his  duties.  By  this  time,  I  presume  he  has  the  army  well  in 
hand. 

"  ....  I  like  General  Halleck  personally,  and  he  seems  to  have  large 
capacity ;  but  he  does  not  work,  work,  work,  as  if  he  were  in  earnest. 

".  .  .  .  There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  alarm  here  yesterday  and  to-day, 
because  of  the  enemy's  cavalry  coming  very  close  to  the  city,  with  sup 
posed  designs  on  the  Washington  &  Baltimore  and  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio 
Railroads.  I  should  not  be  surprised  at  the  cutting  of  one  or  both  the 
roads ;  but  I  attach  no  great  consequence  to  these  raids.  While  the  rebels 
are  doing  these  things  near  Washington,  we  are  doing  the  same  thing  near 
Richmond,  where,  as  you  have  doubtless  seen,  one  of  our  detachments  on 
Friday  or  Saturday  burned  the  bridge  across  the  South  Anna,  and  cap 
tured  General  W.  F.  Lee,  and  other  rebel  officers  and  privates,  and  many 
mules  and  wagons.  Still,  these  things  are  pleasanter  to  do  than  to  suffer. 

"  There  is,  of  course,  a  great  deal  of  concern  about  the  operations  of 
the  two  great  armies  ;  a  concern  naturally  increased  by  the  action  of  Gen 
eral  Hooker.  In  respect  of  them  I  hope  the  best  and  trust  in  God.  ..." 

To  General  Grant. 

"WASHINGTON,  July  4,  1863. 

" ....  It  has  long  been  on  my  mind  to  express  to  you  my  deep  sense 
of  your  great  services  to  our  country ;  but  I  have  forborne,  lest  you  might 
think  I  overstepped  a  civilian's  limits. 

"  Having  occasion  now,  however,  to  write  you  briefly  on  another  sub 
ject,  I  will  not  deny  myself  the  gratification  of  adding  my  personal  thanka 
to  the  gratitude  which  the  whole  patriotic  people  feel  toward  you  for  the 
patient  energy  and  skillful  courage  with  which  you  have  conducted  the 
military  operations  under  your  direction.  God  has  crowned  you  with 
success  hitherto,  and  will,  I  trust,  continue  to  prosper  our  arms  under 
your  conduct. 

"  Vicksburg,  probably,  has  already  succumbed.  Whether  so  or  not, 
its  speedy  fall  can  hardly  be  doubted ;  and  its  capture  cannot  fail  to  be 
followed  by  the  rapid  and  complete  suppression  of  the  rebellion  in  the 
whole  region  west  of  the  Mississippi,  and  by  the  complete  control  of  the 
river  from  its  mouth  to  Cairo. 

"  It  has  given  me  great  satisfaction  to  be  somewhat  useful  in  sustain 
ing  you  here  by  laying  before  the  President,  from  time  to  time,  the  letters 
of  Mr.  Mellen,  the  excellent  supervising  General  Agent  of  the  Department 
for  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi.  He  has  taken  every  pains  to  inform 
himself  accurately,  and  has  constantly  defended  you  against  the  assaults — 
sometimes  of  slanderous  malice,  sometimes  of  mistaken  honesty — and  has 


"SCOTTY"  AND  OTHER  MATTERS.  471 

as  constantly  awarded  to  you  the  praise  of  doing  all  that  ability,  zeal,  and 
fidelity  could  accomplish.  ..." 

To  General  Thomas  L.  Kane. 

"  WASHINGTON,  July  9,  1863. 

"  ....  I  have  just  received  your  congratulatory  card,  and  have  shared 
in  the  rejoicing  which  fills  your  own  heart  in  the  successes  of  our  armies. 
God  be  praised  for  our  victories,  and  honor  and  gratitude  to  the  heroes 
who  have  achieved  them.  .  .  . 

"  The  skies  brighten  all  round  the  horizon.  Vicksburg  already  fallen— 
the  fall  of  Port  Hudson  daily  looked  for — our  armies  everywhere  active — 
the  rebels  exhausted  and  retreating :  is  it  not  now  clear  that  God  will 
give  us  the  victory  ?  May  He  inspire  our  hearts  with  nobleness  enough 
to  make  it  a  sure  guarantee  of  freedom  and  justice  for  all !  ..." 

To  David  Tod,  Governor  of  Ohio. 

"  WASHINGTON,  October  3,  1868. 

"  ....  A  few  days  ago,  when  our  Ohio  boys  returned  from  New 
York,  I  visited  them  at  Alexandria.  There  were  four  regiments — the 
Fiftieth,  Sixty-fifth,  Twenty-third,  and  Seventh — much  reduced  in  num 
bers,  but  full  of  pluck  and  patriotism.  In  the  Fiftieth  there  is  a  private 
named  James  Gray,  of  whose  exploits  wonderful  stories  were  told  by  the 
officers.  At  Port  Republic  he  had  taken  a  gun  from  the  enemy ;  at  Cedar 
Mountain  he  had  staid  behind,  when  his  companions  had  retreated,  and 
fired  off  the  guns  as  a  last  compliment  to  the  enemy,  were  among  the 
things  said  of  him.  I  was  told  that  the  officers  of  the  brigade  had  united 
in  requesting  from  you  a  commission  for  him,  which  you  had  declined  to 
give.  .  .  .  But  he  is  very  proud  of  the  testimonials  transmitted  to  you, 
and  desires  greatly  to  possess  them.  I  promised  to  ask  you  for  them,  and 
send  them  to  him,  if  obtained.  I  hope  you  will  have  no  difficulty  in 
granting  this  request,  and  that  I  may  receive  them  soon. 

"  The  brigade  went  to  the  front  immediately  after  my  visit,  and  has 
since  been  sent,  as  I  understand,  to  reen force  Rosecraus.  If  you  will  send 
me  'ScottyV  testimonials,  however,  they  shall  reach  him,  if  he  is  yet 
above-ground.  ..." 

To  Major- General  Hooker. 

"WASHING JON,  December  21,  1S63. 

"....!  have  been  quite  unwell  of  late,  and  my  correspondence  is  a 
good  deal  in  arrears.  Still,  I  must  take  time  to  dictate  a  few  lines  to  you. 
I  cannot  tell  you  how  much  I  have  been  gratified  by  your  brilliant  achieve 
ments  in  Tennessee  and  Georgia.  How  providential  it  was  that  you  were 
sent  West  at  the  head  of  the  Eleventh  and  Twelfth  Corps !  It  seems  clear 
now  that,  but  for  Mr.  Stanton's  determination  in  insisting  upon  these  re- 
enforcements  going  promptly,  and  going  under  you,  Rosecrans's  army 


472  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

would  have  experienced  the  gravest  disasters.  And  then  it  seems  equally 
providential  that  the  assault  on  Lookout  Mountain  had  to  be  made  under 
your  direction.  The  only  thing  I  do  not  clearly  see  the  value  of,  is  your 
magnificent  achievement  near  Kinggold.  It  was  a  splendid  battle  splen 
didly  won.  But  what  is  the  use  of  sacrificing  so  much  to  take  a  town,  if, 
after  all,  the  town  is  to  be  abandoned,  and  the  army  is  to  fall  back  ? 
Whether  it  was  necessary  to  fall  back  or  not,  I  find  myself  unable  to  form 
any  judgment :  General  Grant  ought  to  know  best.  I  most  sincerely  hope 
he  was  governed  by  the  best  and  most  patriotic  motives.  Grant's  whole 
career  has  excited  my  admiration  and  commanded  my  respect,  and  there 
certainly  ought  to  be  no  jealousies  between  two  such  officers  as  you  and 
he.  Each  should  rejoice  in  what  adds  to  the  honor  of  the  other.  ..." 


CHAPTEE   XLY. 

1862-1864. 

THE  ASSAULT  UPON  MR.  SEWARD  IN  1862  -  RESIGNATION  OF  MR. 
OHASE  -  WITHDRAWS  IT  AND  RESUMES  OFFICE  —  IS  A  CANDIDATE 
FOR  PRESIDENTIAL  NOMINATION  IN  1864:  —  HIRAM  BARNEY  —  RE 

PUBLICAN  PARTY  IN  NEW  YORK  -  QUARREL  OVER  THE  CUSTOMS 
IN  NEW  YORK  -  CONGRESSIONAL  INVESTIGATION  —  ARREST  OF 
A.  M.  PALMER  -  FRANK  BLAIR'S  SPEECH  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REP 
RESENTATIVES  -  OFFICIAL  PATRONAGE  -  HOW  IT  IS  DISPENSED  - 
ASSISTANT  TREASURER'S  OFFICE  IN  NEW  YORK  —  RESIGNATION  OF 
MR.  CISCO  —  DIFFICULTY  IN  FINDING  A  SUCCESSOR  -  RESIGNATION 
OF  MR.  CHASE  —  DEATH  OF  CHIEF-JUSTICE  TANEY  —  MR.  LINCOLN 

NOMINATES  MR.  CHASE  TO  BE  CHIEF-JUSTICE. 


DURING-  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1862  a  feeling  of 
great  hostility  to  Mr.  Seward  grew  up  among  the  friends 
of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Administration.  It  was  founded  upon  a  belief 
that  Mr.  Seward  possessed  a  large  influence  over  the  President, 
and  that  this  influence  was  not  exercised  for  good.  Shortly 
after  the  meeting  of  Congress  in  December  of  that  year,  this 
sentiment  of  hostility  to  Mr.  Seward  was  found  to  be  deep  and 
severe.1  There  was  some  interchange  of  views  among  the  Re 
publican  members  of  Congress,  which  led  to  the  disclosure  of  a 
great  unanimity  of  opinion  upon  the  subject,  and  resulted  in  a 
meeting  of  Republican  Senators  on  the  17th  of  December  to 
take  the  matter  into  consideration.  After  some  discussion  a 
resolution  was  passed  requesting  the  President  to  dismiss  Mr. 
Seward  from  office.  This  resolution  was  adopted  by  a  majority 

1  "  Lincoln  and  Seward,"  by  Gideon  Welles,  ex-Secretary  of  the  Navy,  p.  81,  et  seq. 


474  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

of  one  vote.  While  there  was  an  almost  unanimous  desire  on 
the  part  of  the  assembled  Senators  to  proceed  against  Mr.  Sew 
ard,  there  was  a  large  minority  who  thought  some  less  offensive 
mode  of  action  might  be  quite  as  effective  as  a  direct  vote  per 
sonally  referring  to  the  Secretary  of  State.  It  was  agreed,  there 
fore,  with  but  a  single  dissenting  voice — that  of  Mr.  Preston 
King,  of  ISTew  York — that  the  President  should  be  requested  to 
reconstitute  his  Cabinet,  and  that  a  statement  of  the  reasons 
which  prompted  this  request  should  be  prepared  and  submitted 
to  the  President  at  the  same  time.  It  was  well  understood  that 
the  whole  proceeding  was  aimed  at  Mr.  Seward,  and  that  the 
reasons  alleged  as  the  motive  for  the  request,  were  intended  to 
be  particularly  applicable  to  that  gentleman.  A  committee  of 
nine  Senators  was  appointed  to  wait  upon  the  President  and  in 
form  him  of  the  action  of  the  meeting.  At  the  head  of  this  com 
mittee  the  venerable  Judge  Collamer,  of  Yermont,  was  placed. 
But  these  extraordinary  proceedings  being  immediately  commu 
nicated  to  Mr.  Seward  by  Mr.  Preston  King,  before  the  com 
mittee  could  wait  upon  the  President,  the  Secretary  of  State,  in 
order  to  anticipate  its  action,  resigned  his  office.  The  whole 
affair  was  a  surprise  to  Mr.  Lincoln  and  roused  his  opposition. 
He  determined  to  resist  the  attack  upon  Mr.  Seward,  and  in  this 
purpose  was  powerfully  aided  by  the  unsolicited  action  of  Mr. 
Chase. 

The  reasons  alleged  by  the  assembled  Senators  as  their  mo 
tive  for  asking  a  reconstruction  of  the  Cabinet,  were  interpreted 
by  Mr.  Chase  as  being  wide  enough  in  their  scope  to  include  all 
the  heads  of  departments.  He  was  assured  by  the  participants 
in  the  meeting  that  they  were  particularly  intended  to  apply  to 
Mr.  Seward.  Mr.  Chase  was  not  willing  so  to  construe  them. 
He  was  not  willing  to  be  party  to  an  ambuscade  upon  the  Sec 
retary  of  State ;  and  in  order,  therefore,  to  give  the  President 
an  opportunity  in  good  faith  to  reconstruct  his  Cabinet,  and  be 
cause  he  believed  Mr.  Seward  ought  to  be  retained,  on  the  20th 
of  December  he  resigned  his  office. 

This  was  an  unexpected  result  to  the  Senate  meeting.  The 
retirement  of  Mr.  Chase  was  everywhere  regarded  as  a  public 
calamity;  but  it  gratified  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  saw  in  it 'a  means  of 
defeating  the  congressional  dictation.  He  promptly  seized 


MR.   CHASE  RESIGNS— 1862.  475 

upon  tlie  general  wish  for  Mr.  Chase's  continuance  in  office, 
and  made  it  available  for  the  retention  of  Mr.  Seward.  He 
addressed  a  joint  note  to  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Chase,  saying 
that,  after  an  anxious  consideration  of  the  subject,  it  was  his 
deliberate  judgment  that  the  public  interest  did  not  admit  of 
their  withdrawal  from  office.  He  therefore  requested  them  to 
resume  the  duties  of  their  respective  departments.  It  was  the 
President's  intention  and  expectation  that  there  should  be  a 
conference  between  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Chase,  and  it  was 
with  this  view  that  he  addressed  his  note  to  them  jointly,  that 
their  action  and  reply  might  be  joint  and  not  separate;  it 
being  at  the  same  time  his  distinctly  avowed  purpose  to  make 
Mr.  Seward's  restoration  to  the  State  Department  dependent 
upon  Mr.  Chase's  return  to  the  Treasury.  Mr.  Seward  did 
not  confer  with  Mr.  Chase,  however,  but  embarrassed  him 
as  well  as  Mr.  Lincoln  by  a  prompt  and  separate  acceptance 
of  the  President's  invitation.  This  was  on  Sunday  morning, 
the  21st  of  December.  He  then — that  same  day — advised  Mr. 
Chase  of  what  he  had  done,  much  to  Mr.  Chase's  surprise  and 
more  to  his  regret.  Mr.  Chase  did  not  respond  until  the  next 
morning,  when — in  obedience  not  only  to  the  President's  strong 
ly-expressed  desire,  but  to  that  of  the  country  unmistakably 
manifested — he  notified  to  Mr.  Lincoln  his  return  to  the  duties 
of  office. 

Mr.  Lincoln  on  frequent  occasions  expressed  his  gratitude 
to  Mr.  Chase  for  his  action  at  this  conjuncture,  since  it  deliv 
ered  him  from  congressional  dictation,  and  enabled  him  to  re 
tain  an  officer  for  whom  he  had  a  strong  personal  regard  and  in 
whose  judgment  he  reposed  trust.  But  Mr.  Chase  secured,  as 
his  share  in  the  profits  of  the  transaction,  many  and  permament 
enemies. 

Mr.  Chase's  resignation  in  June,  1864,  grew  out  of  differ 
ences  of  opinion  between  the  President  and  himself,  touching 
the  appointment  of  a  successor  to  Mr.  Cisco,  in  the  sub-Treas 
urer's  office  in  New  York  City ;  and  was  promptly  accepted  by 
Mr.  Lincoln — more  promptly,  perhaps,  than  it  otherwise  would 
have  been,  but  for  the  connection  of  Mr.  Chase's  name  with  the 
presidential  nomination  in  1864. 

During  the  winter  of  1863-'64,  a  feeling  of  great  despond- 


476  LEFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

ency  prevailed  among  the  people.  The  war  had  been  pro 
longed  beyond  all  expectation ;  it  was  immense  in  its  propor 
tions  ;  nor  was  the  end  apparently  near,  nor  could  it  be  very  safe 
ly  predicted.  A  strong  conviction  grew  up  that  a  change  in  ad 
ministration  was  necessary,  and  in  this  conviction  many  leading 
Republicans  participated.  A  movement  was  put  on  foot  with  a 
view  to  present  Mr.  Chase  for  the  Republican  nomination  at 
Baltimore.  A  committee  of  gentlemen  waited  upon  him ;  they 
urged  him  to  consent  to  a  use  of  his  name  as  a  candidate"  for 
the  presidential  succession.  He  at  first  hesitated,  and  did  not 
answer  promptly ;  but,  despondent  and  dissatisfied  himself  with 
the  conduct  of  the  war,  and  believing  that  if  he  were  at  the 
head  of  the  Government  he  could  infuse  into  its  prosecution 
vigor  and  energy;  and  perfectly  certain  that  he  sought,  para 
mount  to  all  other  considerations,  the  good  of  the  country,  he 
finally  gave  his  consent.1  This  consent  may  have  been  a  mis 
take,  but,  even  admitting  it  to  have  been  such,  it  was  an  honest 
and  patriotic  one. 

The  movement  fell,  however,  into  bad  hands ;  it  was  badly 
officered  and  was  badly  managed.  A  circular  was  prepared, 
embodying  the  objections  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  reelection,  and  the 
considerations  which  were  in  Mr.  Chase's  favor.  "With  a  sur 
prising  want  of  tact  and  sense,  this  circular  was  marked  "  confi 
dential,"  and  was  sent  to  perhaps  a  hundred  persons.  Of  course 
it  fell  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  friends,  who  denounced 
it  with  unsparing  vigor.  If  at  any  previous  time  the  "  Chase 
movement "  had  been  attended  by  the  least  likelihood  of  .suc 
cess,  that  likelihood  was  promptly  and  utterly  extinguished  by 
the  appearance  of  the  "Pomeroy  Circular."  Counter-circulars 
were  issued  by  Lincoln  committees ;  public  sentiment  reacted 
in  his  favor,  and  grew  stronger  as  time  passed,  and  ended  in  his 
renomination  and  reelection,  as  is  matter  of  familiar  history. 

Mr.  Chase  was  ignorant  of  the  preparation  of  this  circular, 
and  was  as  much  surprised  at  its  appearance  as  any  one,  and 
regretted  it  as  deeply ;  but  he  could  not  publicly  disavow  the 

1  Mr.  Chase  was  a  believer  in  that  curious  political  abstraction  called  the  "  one- 
term  principle,"  and  this  consideration  had  some  weight  in  his  mind ;  and  he 
thought,  also,  that  no  interruption  would  occur,  in  consequence  of  his  candidacy, 
in  his  relations  with  the  President.  A  mistake,  of  course,  as  events  proved. 


THE  NEW  YORK  CUSTOM-HOUSE.  477 

action  of  his  own  friends,  however  ill-advised  and  inopportune 
that  action  was. 

The  relations  "between  the  President  and  the  Secretary  were 
seriously  embarrassed  by  these  events,  and  still  more  so  by  a 
struggle  between  rival  factions  in  the  Republican  party  in  New 
York  to  get  possession  of  the  custom-house  in  that  city.  The 
history  of  that  struggle  is  of  no  small  interest  and  import 
ance. 

The  appointment  of  Hiram  Barney  to  be  collector  at  the  port 
of  New  York  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  act,  done  upon  his  own  per 
sonal  responsibility ;  because  of  his  knowledge  of  Mr.  Barney, 
and  confidence  in  his  capacity  and  integrity.  The  selection  was, 
however,  peculiarly  gratifying  to  Mr.  Chase.  His  acquaintance 
with  Mr.  Barney  in  1860  was  of  nearly  twenty  years'  standing ; 
for  eighteen  years  (since  1842)  they  had  been  business  correspond 
ents,  and  since  1848  they  had  been  personally  and  politically  in* 
timate.  The  President's  choice  of  Mr.  Barney  for  so  important 
a  post  in  his  own  department  was,  therefore,  a  matter  of  sincere 
gratification  to  Mr.  Chase.  But  the  close  personal  friendship  ex 
isting  between  the  new  collector  and  both  the  President  and  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  became  a  source  of  painful  embarrass 
ment  to  him,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Chase  were,  for  a  short 
period  in  1863  and  1864,  rival  candidates  for  a  presidential  nomi 
nation.  The  next  paragraph  will  show  the  nature  and  extent  of 
that  embarrassment. 

The  Republican  party  in  New  York  was  divided  into  two 
factions,  radicals  and  conservatives ;  the  conservatives  claiming 
to  be  the  special  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Mr.  Barney  was  re 
garded  as  having  radical  proclivities,  and  as  inclining  rather  in 
the  direction  of  Mr.  Chase's  nomination,  but  his  friendly  rela 
tions  with  both  the  President  and  the  Secretary,  joined  with  his 
ideas  of  the  proprieties  of  his  position  as  a  public  officer — the 
subordinate  as  well  of  the  Secretary  as  of  the  President — led  him 
to  decline  participation  in  the  efforts  of  the  friends  of  either  as 
against  the  other.  He  made  appointments  and  conducted  the 
affairs  of  the  custom-house  without  reference  to  the  interests  of 
the  rival  factions,  or  of  presidential  candidates.  Mr.  Barney  had 
foreseen  this  embarrassment,  and  for  this  reason  and  because  of 
seriously  failing  health,  in  the  autumn  of  1863  had  asked  to  be  re- 


478  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

lieved  from  his  position  as  collector ;  but  neither  the  President 
nor  the  Secretary  would  then  consent  to  his  retirement — the 
friends  of  the  former  asserting  that  the  appointment  of  a  new  col 
lector,  at  that  time,  would  raise  dissensions  dangerous  to  the  har 
mony  if  not  the  integrity  of  the  Cabinet.  Toward  the  end  of  the 
year  1863,  Mr.  Barney  was  urged  by  leading  opponents  of  Mr. 
Chase  to  declare  himself  in  favor  of  Mr.  Lincoln ;  and  was  signifi 
cantly  warned  that,  unless  he  did  so, "  he  would  be  attacked."  Mr. 
Barney  then  emphatically  renewed  his  refusal  to  take  sides,  and 
declared  that  he  would  continue  to  perform  the  duties  of  his  office, 
and  would  be  ready  for  attacks  of  whatever  character  and  from 
whatever  quarter.  Early  in  January,  1864,  the  threatened  attack 
was  made.  It  came  in  the  form  of  a  resolution  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  directing  an  investigation  by  the  Committee  on 
Reconstruction,  into  alleged  misconduct  in  the  management  of  the 
custom-house,  with  relation  particularly  to  shipments  of  contra 
band  goods.  This  committee  acted  promptly  upon  its  instructions, 
and  proceeding  at  once  to  New  York,  began  the  examination. 

Mr.  Barney's  private  clerk,  Albert  M.  Palmer,  a  young  man 
of  about  twenty-six  years  of  age — supposed  to  be  in  the  posses 
sion  of  important  secrets  of  the  collector — was,  in  the  temporary 
absence  of  Mr.  Barney,  seized  and  thrust  into  a  cell  in  Fort  La 
fayette;  and  for  a  considerable  time  was  denied  communication 
with  his  wife  and  friends.  ~No  charges  were  made  against  him 
then,  and  none  have  been  made  against  him  since.  He  asked  to 
be  confronted  with  accusers  and  accusations  if  there  were  any, 
but  no  accuser  appeared  and  no  accusation  was  made.  He  suf 
fered  months  of  confinement  before  he  was  enlarged ;  and  the 
cause  of  his  enlargement  was  and  is  as  officially  unknown  as  the 
cause  of  his  arrest  and  imprisonment. 

But  the  motive  of  Palmer's  arrest  was  perfectly  well  under 
stood.  It  was  expected  that,  separated  from  his  family  and 
friends,  ignorant  of  accuser  and  of  accusations,  and  of  what  was 
going  on  in  the  active  world  of  which  he  had  lately  been  a  part, 
and  utterly  alone,  he  would  inculpate  his  chief.  The  method 
pursued  in  examining  him  was  extraordinary,  and  would  not 
have  been  tolerated  in  a  court  of  justice.  But  Palmer  was 
neither  a  coward  nor  a  rascal ;  he  bore  himself  like  a  man  con 
scious  of  innocence,  and  showed  himself  nobler  than  his  inquis- 


CUSTOM-HOUSE  INVESTIGATION.  479 

itors :  tie  said  lie  knew  no  wrong  in  Mr.  Barney's  official  con 
duct,  and  that  he  would  rot  in  the  fort  rather  than  make  a  lying 
charge  against  him. 

After  the  appointment  of  this  committee,  a  messenger  from 
the  President  waited  on  Mr.  Barney,  and  informed  him  that  Mr. 
Lincoln — aware  of  his  ill-health  and  of  his  desire  to  resign  the 
collect orship — would  now  accept  his  resignation,  and  would  give 
him  such  foreign  diplomatic  appointment  as  would  agree  with 
his  tastes,  and  help  in  restoring  his  health.  The  President  had 
authorized  his  messenger  to  assure  Mr.  Barney  that  his  friend 
ship  and  confidence  were  unabated.  The  collector  replied  that 
up  to  the  time  when  his  official  conduct  had  been  questioned,  he 
would  gladly  have  retired,  as  the  President  well  knew,  but  he 
must  now  remain  and  resist  the  attack  upon  him,  at  whatever 
risk  to  his  health  and  comfort ;  that  neither  he  nor  the  President 
could  then  afford  such  an  arrangement  as  the  one  proposed.  It 
would  subject  both  to  the  most  damaging  criticism. 

The  investigation  was  allowed  to  go  on;  but  it  was  a  failure. 
The  committee  developed  some  criminal  acts  on  the  part  of  one 
of  the  employe's  of  the  custom-house,  a  boy  of  nineteen  or 
twenty  years  of  age,  who  had  been  bribed  to  commit  them,  and 
some  irregularities  which  "  did  not  arise,"  as  the  committee  said, 
"from  any  neglect  in  the  custom-house  in  administering  the 
law,  but  were  organic  in  traffic  carried  on  in  similar  circum 
stances,  however  regulated. "  The  eminent  merchant,  Mr. 
Alexander  T.  Stewart,  testified  that  the  business  of  his  estab 
lishment  with  the  custom-house  was  attended  to  as  satisfactorily 
as,  if  not  more  so  than,  under  former  Administrations ;  and  not 
a  single  circumstance  was  evolved  to  show  any  other  than  a  care 
ful  and  prudent  business  management,  and  a  perfect  integrity 
on  the  part  of  the  collector. 

The  President  and  Mr.  Chase  were  deeply  interested  wit 
nesses  of  the  committee's  proceedings,  but  from  different  stand 
points.  The  President  was  precluded  from  removing  an  officer 
appointed  upon  his  own  personal  responsibility,  except  for  a  just 
cause,  and  he  had  no  reason  to  doubt,  and  he  did  not  doubt,  the 
fidelity  and  integrity  of  Mr.  Barney's  administration;  but  he 
sympathized  with  the  collector's  enemies.  Mr.  Chase  offered  no 
objection  to  investigation ;  no  one  more  than  he  desired  the  ex- 


I/ 


480  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

posure  and  correction  of  real  abuses,  but  he  despised  the  incen 
tives  to  this  inquisition,  and  rejoiced  at  its  defeat. 

Meantime,  pending  these  events,  Mr.  Frank  P.  Blair — a 
member  of  Congress  from  Missouri,  and  a  brother  of  Mont 
gomery  Blair,  the  Postmaster-General — made  an  extraordinary 
speech  in  his  place  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  This  speech 
was  a  most  bitter  and  abusive  attack  upon  Mr.  Chase,  and  was 
supposed  to  be  in  part  prompted  by  the  Postmaster-General,  be 
tween  whom  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  there  was  known 
to  exist  a  strong  personal  and  political  hostility.  The  origin  of 
this  feud  is  unimportant  here ;  but,  I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  say, 
that  before  the  death  of  Mr.  Chase,  the  relations  between  him 
self  and  the  former  Postmaster-General  had  become  cordial,  if 
not  those  of  an  active  friendship.  "When  Mr.  Chase  was  ap 
pointed  Chief -Justice,  Mr.  Blair  had  some  apprehension  that  his 
practice  in  the  Supreme  Court  might  be  embarrassed  by  the 
hostilities  of  their  Cabinet  association ;  but  he  found  the  Chief- 
Justice  too  noble-minded  to  be  moved,  by  private  animosities, 
even  to  a  discourtesy  in  the  performance  of  public  duties.  But 
this  is  digression.  A  few  days  after  making  his  speech  against 
Mr.  Chase,  Mr.  Blair,  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  was 
nominated  by  the  President  to  be  a  major-general  of  volunteers. 
This  apparent  indorsement  of  General  Blair's  attack,  was  ex 
tremely  irritating  to  Mr.  Chase.  But  Mr.  Lincoln  disavowed 
any  design  of  wounding  him  by  the  nomination,  or  of  indors 
ing  Blair's  attack,  and  Mr.  Chase  could  not,  and  did  not,  doubt 
the  President's  perfect  sincerity.  But  his  position  as  head  of  a 
department  was  not  improved  by  the  occurrence. 

The  canvass  for  the  presidency  wore  on,  with  increasing  bit 
terness  between  the  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  those  of  Mr. 
Chase,  in  which  both  the  principals  became  more  or  less  involved, 
until  there  was  a  good  deal  of  estrangement  between  them.  It 
was  a  genuine  and  hearty  relief  to  Mr.  Chase,  therefore,  when 
the  action  of  the  Republican  members  of  the  Ohio  Legislature, 
in  passing  a  resolution  indorsing  a  renomination  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
gave  him  an  opportunity  to  withdraw  his  name.  He  promptly 
did  so,  in  a  letter  admirable  for  its  good  spirit  and  good  feeling. 
But  his  withdrawal  did  not  heal  the  breach  between  himself  and 
the  President.  Their  intercourse  grew  more  constrained  and 


THE  GOVERNMENT  PATRONAGE.  481 

formal,  and  it  became  evident  that  separation  depended  upon 
adequate  occasion. 

Now,  the  patronage  in  the  gift  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury,  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  was  much  greater  than  that 
dispensed  by  any  other  head  of  a  civil  department;  it  was 
greater,  perhaps,  than  that  of  all  the  other  heads  of  civil  depart 
ments  combined,  and  it  grew  with  the  progress  of  the  war,  until 
at  the  close  of  it,  in  1865,  the  Treasury  employes,  direct  and  in 
direct,  could  not  have  numbered  less — at  a  rough  estimate — than 
fifteen  thousand  persons.  The  long  exclusion  from  power  of  the 
opponents  of  the  Democratic  party  had  keenly  whetted  the  Re 
publican  appetite  for  place  and  office,  and  with  the  incoming  of 
the  new  Administration  a  sweeping  change  of  office-holders  was 
expected  to  be  made.  Throngs  of  applicants  for  place  flocked 
to  Washington  immediately  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  inauguration ; 
and  hundreds  who  did  not  go  there  in  person,  sent  their  agents ; 
and  the  mails  were  loaded  down  with  written  applications,  ac 
companied  by  petitions  and  recommendations  of  friends  and 
political  "  backers,"  almost  without  number.  This  was  not  due 
wholly  to  mere  clamor  for  public  employments ;  but  very  largely 
to  the  depressed  condition  of  the  industries  and  trade  of  the 
country,  which  induced  many  to  seek  office  who  otherwise,  prob 
ably,  would  not  even  have  thought  of  it.  But  the  halls  and 
anterooms  of  all  the  departments  were  filled  with  applicants,  and 
for  two  or  three  months  it  seemed  as  if  the  chief  business  of  the 
heads  was  to  guillotine  the  "  ins,"  that  their  places  might  be 
occupied  by  the  "  outs." 

All  this  was  strictly  consonant  with  the  political  sentiment 
of  the  American  people,  since  our  party  codes  recognize  and  act 
upon  the  maxim  that  to  the  victors  belong  the  spoils.  Of  course, 
the  defeated  party  always  has  a  strong  perception  of  the  vicious 
immorality  of  the  maxim,  and  more  especially  of  the  practice  it 
involves,  but  the  victorious  party  never  has.  All  parties  de 
nounce  it,  and  all  parties  practise  it,  just  as  defeat  makes  them 
virtuous,  or  victory  makes  them  vicious. 

The  practice  goes  'further  even  than  the  maxim.     If  heads 

of  departments  were  left  free  to  make  choice  of  subordinate 

officers,  untrammeled  by  any  other  consideration  than  that  of 

securing  faithful  servants  out  of  the  ranks  of  the  party  in  power, 

31 


482  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

the  evil  might  not  be  so  great  and  oppressive.  Local  and  indi 
vidual  interests,  however,  make  freedom  in  appointments  almost 
impossible.  Those  interests  override  faithful  administration 
for  the  common  public  good ;  the  upshot  being  that  local  poli 
ticians  and  members  of  Congress  seize  and  hold  possession  of  the 
Federal  offices,  almost  as  matter  of  right.  The  consequences 
are  visible  on  all  sides. 

Mr.  "Welles  mentions  a  curious  instance  of  this  spirit :  A 
conference  was  held  at  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  one 
evening  in  March,  1861,  to  consider  the  Federal  appointments  in 
the  State  of  New  York,  "  relative  to  which  differences  of  opinion 
existed,"  not,  as  it  would  appear,  between  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  and  others,  but,  "  between  the  Secretary  of  State  and 
the  Senators  from  "New  York."  The  President  was  reluctantly 
present,  having  invited  Mr.  Welles  to  accompany  him,  and  the 
other  members  of  the  conference  were  Mr.  Seward  and  Senators 
Harris  and  King.  The  President  said  he  would  relieve  them  of 
any  embarrassment  touching  the  collector  of  customs  at  New 
York,  the  most  important  of  these  offices,  by  appointing,  upon 
his  own  responsibility,  and  from  personal  knowledge,  Hiram 
Barney,  who  had  his  confidence,  and  was  a  man  of  integrity. 
Mr.  Welles  proceeds :  "  After  listening  to  the  disposition  of 
some  collectorships  and  other  offices,  in  which  there  was  an 
approximation  to  agreement,  an  intimation  was  thrown  out  by 
Mr.  Seward  that  he  wished  the  list  which  he  had  made  out,  and 
which  was  somewhat  extended,  might  be  completed,  and  the 
nominations  sent  forthwith  to  the  Senate.  This  embarrassed  the 
two  Senators,  wrho  were  not  prepared  for  so  hasty  a  movement. 
I  inquired  if  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  the  Attorney- 
General  had  been  consulted  and  concurred  in  the  selections. 
Mr.  Seward  said  they  had  not ;  that  it  was  unnecessary ;  that 
these  were  New  York  appointments,  and  he  and  the  Senators 
knew  better  than  any  others  what  was  best  for  the  party  and 
Administration  in  the  State ;  .  .  .  that  there  were  personal  and 
party  matters  to  be  considered,  which  neither  Mr.  Chase  nor  Mr. 
Bates  could  understand  so  well  as  himself ! " l  The  President  and 
Mr.  Welles  both  dissented  from  these  views ;  the  former  saying, 
that  "  to  fill  the  New  York  appointments  as  Mr.  Seward  wished, 

fc  l  "  Lincoln  and  Seward,"  by  ex-Secretary  Gideon  Welles,  p.  72,  et  seq. 


NEW  YORK  SUB-TREASURY.  483 

/ 

without  consulting  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  others 
directly  interested,  would,  he  was  convinced,  not  be  satisfactory." 
The  Senators  do  not  seem  to  have  been  embarrassed  on  account 
of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  but  for  themselves,  because  of 
Mr.  Seward's  prompt  way  of  settling  their  differences  to  his 
own  satisfaction,  and  without  particular  reference  to  their  in 
terests  or  desires. 

It  was  sufficiently  distasteful  to  Mr.  Chase  that,  in  dispensing 
patronage,  party  interests  should  dominate  those  of  the  common 
weal  ;  though  he  did  not  doubt  that  in  many  instances  vacancies 
might  properly  be  made  :  for  example,  where  the  action  of  the 
incumbent  involved  the  principles  of  the  party,  and  that  action 
was  hostile  to  those  principles.  And  he  believed,  and  acted 
upon  the  belief,  that  vacancies  occurring  in  the  natural  course  of 
events,  should  be  filled  from  the  ranks  of  the  party  in  power, 
unless,  for  specific  reasons,  the  public  interest  could  be  otherwise 
better  served.  But  he  did  not  believe  in  a  universal  change  in 
the  Federal  offices ;  and  he  believed  still  less  in  making  those 
offices  the  mere  servitors  of  Congressmen  and  local  politicians. 
He  listened  to  their  suggestions  and  recommendations  with  a 
patient  regard  for  their  wishes,  and  a  desire  to  benefit  by  their 
local  knowledge,  and  resisted  them  when  he  thought  it  a  public 
duty  to  do  so. 

]STor  is  it  to  be  wondered  at,  in  view  of  the  extent  and  value 
of  the  Treasury  patronage,  that  its  disposal  was  attended  by 
peculiar  vexations. 

One  of  the  most  important  of  the  Federal  offices — the  most 
important,  financially,  next  after  that  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  at  any  rate  during  the  war — is  that  of  Assistant 
Treasurer  in  the  city  of  New  York.  Its  necessarily  intimate 
connection  with  the  monetary  interests  of  the  metropolis  and 
money-centre  of  the  country,  and  its  incalculable  importance  to 
the  financial  transactions  of  the  Government,  made  its  admin 
istration  during  the  war  one  of  great  difficulty  and  responsi 
bility.  In  1864,  over  $1,200,000,000  in  cash,  coin  and  currency, 
was  received  and  paid  over  its  counters.  Its  employes  were 
about  one  hundred  in  number,  and  they  were  chosen  with  no 
other  reference  to  their  opinions  than  that  they  were  honestly 
loyal  to  the  rightful  authorities  of  the  Government.  But  above 


484  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

all  mere  party  considerations  were  the  indispensable  require 
ments  of  business  capacity  and  experience,  and  established  moral 
character. 

Mr.  John  J.  Cisco  had  served  in  this  important  office  from  the 
beginning  of  President  Pierce's  term  until  near  the  close  of  the 
first  term  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  His  health  was  a  good  deal  impaired 
by  the  severe  and  incessant  demands  which  its  duties  devolved 
upon  him.  He  wished  to  retire,  but  was  induced  to  remain  as 
well  by  the  solicitations  of  the  President  as  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  until  it  became  imperative  upon  him  to  give  it  up. 
In  May,  1864,  he  wrote  his  resignation,  to  take  effect  on  the  30th 
of  June  following ;  and  as  it  could  be  declined  no  longer,  Mr. 
Chase  sought  a  successor. 

The  relations  between  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  the 
Assistant  Treasurer  at  New  York  are  of  the  most  intimate  and 
confidential  nature,  and  Mr.  Chase  felt  that  in  the  selection  of 
the  new  incumbent  he  would  be  allowed  a  great  freedom  of 
choice,  it  being  understood  that  it  would  fall  upon  a  supporter 
of  the  Administration  and  a  man  of  known  capacity  and  integrity. 
Mr.  Chase  was  mistaken  ;  he  was  not  free  to  make  choice  upon 
this  view  of  the  public  interest  and  of  official  requirement,  but 
was  expected  to  conform  his  choice  to  the  wishes  of  Mr.  Edwin 
D.  Morgan,  a  United  States  Senator  from  Kew  York.  Appar 
ently  Mr,  Morgan  was  not  so  deeply  interested  in  the  business 
management  of  the  office,  as  in  the  political  opinions  of  its  em 
ployes. 

Three  names  were  presented  by  Mr.  Morgan,  none  of  which 
were  satisfactory  to  Mr.  Chase.  All  three  were  utter  strangers 
to  him,  and  none  of  them  were  at  all  familiar  with  the  duties  of 
the  office  ;  and  what  was  worse,  the  appointment  of  any  one  of 
the  three  meant  a  "  reform  "  in  the  office  in  the  interest  of  the 
conservative  faction  in  the  Republican  party.  Mr.  Chase  cared 
neither  for  the  radicals  nor  the  conservatives,  but  he  cared  a 
great  deal  for  a  safe  administration  of  the  office.  He  therefore 
offered  it  successively  to  three  conspicuous  financial  gentlemen  of 
New  York  ;  to  Moses  Taylor,  to  Denning  Duer,  and  to  John  A. 
Stewart.  All  these  gentlemen  declined.  He  thereupon  resolved 
to  nominate  Mr.  Maunsell  B.  Field,  then  Assistant  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury.  Mr.  Field  had  served  some  time  in  the  sub-Treas- 


NOMINATION  OF  SUB-TREASURER.  485 

urer's  office  in  New  York  as  assistant  to  Mr.  Cisco ;  he  was  thor 
oughly  conversant  with  its  duties,  and  had  discharged  them  to 
the  satisfaction  alike  of  Mr.  Cisco  and  of  the  Treasury,  and  be 
cause  of  the  ability  and  business  qualities  displayed  in  this  place 
had  been  transferred  to  Washington  as  an  Assistant  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury.  His  integrity  was  not  questioned  ;  he  was  recom 
mended  by  Mr.  Cisco  and  leading  merchants  and  bankers  of  New 
York,  and  had  the  indorsement  of  all  the  Union  members  of 
Congress  from  New  York,  except  of  Mr.  Morgan.  But  he  was 
supposed  to  be  a  radical ;  which  was  not  true,  though  he  was  of 
Democratic  antecedents.  It  was  perfectly  well  known,  however, 
that  he  would  make  few  or  no  changes  in  the  officers  and  clerks 
of  the  sub-Treasurer's  office ;  and  this  was,  after  all,  the  exact 
spot  at  which  the  shoe  pinched. 

On  the  27th  of  June,  three  days  before  Mr.  Cisco's  resigna 
tion  was  to  take  effect,  after  Mr.  Stewart  had  declined  the  office, 
and  Mr.  Chase  had  determined  to  offer  it  to  Mr.  Field,  he  called 
upon  Mr.  Morgan  to  confer  with  him  about  it.  Mr.  Morgan 
made  no  objection  to  Mr.  Field ;  but  said  that  the  chairman  of  a 
Eepublican  committee  in  New  York  had  called  upon  him  quite 
indignant  about  the  political  complexion  of  Mr.  Cisco's  office,  and 
had  insisted  that  it  must  be  reformed.  The  Senator  produced 
a  list  of  all  the  officers  and  clerks  in  the  office  with  letters  set  op 
posite  the  name  of  each,  indicating  the  party  affiliation  of  the  per 
son  bearing  it.  Mr.  Chase  told  Mr.  Morgan  that  he  did  not  sup 
pose  any  considerable  number  of  the  persons  in  Mr.  Cisco's  office 
were  opponents  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Administration,  though  no  doubt 
many  of  them  were  Democrats  (and  a  good  many  on  the  list  were 
marked  D.)  like  Daniel  S.  Dickinson  and  John  A.  Dix.  He  said 
he  could  not  admit  the  propriety  of  making  the. appointment  of 
Assistant  Treasurer  in  New  York  depend  upon  mere  partisan  or 
factional  grounds.  He  was  alarmed  at  the  spirit  manifested  in 
the  production  of  this  list ;  feeling  strongly  that  if  the  office  was 
to  be  turned  into  any  thing  like  a  political  machine  the  public  in 
terests  would  suffer,  and  his  administration  would  be  greatly  em 
barrassed,  if  not  irretrievably  damaged.  He  said  a  good  deal  in 
this  strain  to  the  Senator ;  but  the  Senator  did  not  seem  satisfied 
with  Mr.  Chase's  views,  though  apparently  not  very  much  dis 
satisfied  either.  In  bringing  the  interview  to  a  close,  and  as  he 


486  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

was  about  to  leave,  Mr.  Cliase  said  to  Senator  Morgan  that  lie 
would  consider  what  he — the  Senator — had  said,  with  every  dis 
position  to  gratify  his  wishes  if  consistent  with  public  interests. 
Mr.  Chase  did  consider  what  the  Senator  had  said,  but  his  mind 
was  not  changed.  That  same  evening  he  sent  a  blank  nomina 
tion  of  Mr.  Field  to  the  President  for  signature — not  doubting 
that  the  President  would  promptly  sign  it. 

The  next  day,  however,  the  Secretary  received  a  note  from 
Mr.  Lincoln,  expressing  his  reluctance  to  nominate  Mr.  Field, 
because  of  the  persistent  opposition  of  Senator  Morgan.  Mr. 
Chase  replied  by  a  note  asking  a  personal  interview ;  and  after 
ward,  not  receiving  an  answer,  by  a  letter  and  memorandum  par 
ticularly  stating  his  reasons  for  preferring  Mr.  Field.  To  this 
letter  the  President  rejoined,  stating  the  embarrassments  to  which 
he  had  been  subjected  by  certain  appointments  in  the  New  York 
Custom-house,  and  that  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Field  would 
create  additional  embarrassment  of  the  same  sort,  unless  Senator 
Morgan  and  those  feeling  as  he  did  could  be  brought  to  concur 
in  it.  Mr.  Chase-  took  this  to  be  a  distinct  declaration  that  it 
was  necessary  to  satisfy  Senator  Morgan  and  Senator  Morgan's 
friends,  and  it  determined  him  at  once  to  resign.  He  said  he 
could  not  hold  the  office  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  upon  con 
dition  that  he  should  be  controlled  in  the  selection  of  so  impor 
tant  an  officer  as  Assistant  Treasurer  at  New  York  by  anybody 
other  than  the  President,  or  without  his  permission  to  select  from 
among  loyal  and  faithful  men  the  fittest  man  for  that  place  who 
would  accept  it,  and  with  whom  his  relations  could  be  as  cordial 
and  confidential  as  they  had  been  with  Mr.  Cisco.  In  a  letter  of 
reply  to  the  President,  he  stated  the  general  rule  which,  in  his 
judgment,  ought  to  govern  selections  for  official  trusts ;  and 
added  that,  although  Mr.  Cisco's  temporary  withdrawal  *  relieved 
the  immediate  difficulty,  he  could  not  but  feel  that  his  continu 
ance  in  the  Treasury  was  not  altogether  agreeable  to  him — the 
President — and  was  certainly  too  full  of  difficulty  and  embarrass 
ment,  and  painful  responsibility,  to  allow  a  wish  on  his  part  to 
retain  it.  He  inclosed  his  resignation,  therefore,  and  said  it 
would  be  a  relief  if  the  President  would  accept  it.  This  was  on 

1  In  answer  to  a  letter  and  telegram,  Mr.  Cisco  had  consented  to  remain  another 
quarter. 


THE   CHIEF- JUSTICESHIP.  487 

the  29th  of  June.  On  the  30th  the  President  answered.  Of  all 
he  had  said  in  commendation  of  Mr.  Chase's  fidelity  and  ability, 
he  said  'in  that  letter,  he  had  nothing  to  unsay ;  but  that  Mr. 
Chase  and  himself  had  reached  that  point  of  mutual  embarrass 
ment  in  their  official  relations  which,  it  seemed,  could  not  be 
overcome  consistently  with  the  public  service.  He  therefore  ac 
cepted  the  resignation. 

So  ended  Mr.  Chase's  career  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasuiy. 

....  Mr.  Chief-Justice  Taney  died  on  the  12th  of  October 
subsequent  to  Mr.  Chase's  resignation.  The  late  Chief-Justice's 
extreme  old  age  and  feeble  health  had,  even  in  his  life,  led  to  some 
speculation  as  to  his  successor,  and  the  President  had  signified 
his  purpose,  should  a  vacancy  happen  in  that  office  during  his 
term,  to  fill  it  by  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Chase.  When  the 
vacancy  occurred,  however,  various  circumstances  conspired  to 
delay  an  appointment.  Chief  among  these  was  the  pendency  of 
the  presidential  election,  and  the  prompt  appearance  of  rival 
candidates  for  the  office.  The  most  active  of  these  was  Associate- 
Justice  Swayne,  already  a  member  of  the  court,  and  the  most 
confident  was  Postmaster-General  Blair,  who  was  supported  by 
Mr.  Seward.  Mr.  Chase  had  in  the  Cabinet  two  faithful  friends, 
Mr.  Stanton  and  Mr.  Fessenden ;  and  outside  of  the  Cabinet,  he 
was  earnestly  befriended  by  Mr.  Sumner  and  Senator  Sherman. 
His  nomination  was  urged  by  a  large  majority  of  the  Republican 
journals ;  and  the  public  sentiment  of  the  country  was  unmis 
takably  in  his  favor.  But  he  had  vigorous  and  vindictive 
enemies,  and  these  opposed  him  persistently,  and,  to  all  outward 
appearance,  with  large  prospect  of  success,  though  the  President' 
kept  silent.  On  the  very  morning  of  Mr.  Chase's  nomination,  a 
self-appointed  deputation  of  his  Ohio  enemies  waited  upon  the 
President  to  protest  against  it.  They  could  not  deny  Mr.  Chase's 
fitness,  nor  his  fidelity  to  principles,  nor  the  integrity  and  purity 
of  his  character,  nor  the  prevailing  public  sentiment  in  his  favor ; 
but  they  sought  to  inflame  the  President  by  producing  some  let 
ters  of  his  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln  was  rather  freely  criticised. 
The  President  read  them,  and  with  characteristic  humor  observed, 
that  if  Mr.  Chase  had  said  harsh  things  about  him,  he,  in  his  turn, 
had  said  harsh  things  about  Mr.  Chase,  which  squared  the  account. 


488  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  estimate  of  the  grandeur  of  Mr.  Chase's  services,  and 
of  the  substantial  greatness  and  nobility  of  his  character,  was  not 
diminished  by  the  estrangement  which  had  arisen  between  them, 
for  in  the  very  heat  of  it  he  had  said :  "  Of  all  the  great  men  I 
have  ever  known,  Chase  is  equal  to  about  one  and  a  half  of  the 
best  of  them."  With  his  own  hand  he  wrote  out  the  nomina 
tion,  and  sent  it  to  the  Senate  with  a  profound  sqnse  of  the  pro 
priety  and  fitness  of  the  act.  This  was  on  the  6th  of  December, 
1864.  The  Senate  confirmed  the  nomination  without  a  reference. 
Mr.  Chase  arrived  in  "Washington  in  the  evening  of  that  same 
day,  and  Mrs.  Sprague  had  the  happiness  first  to  salute  her  father 
with  the  august  title  of  Chief- Justice.  Mr.  Chase  believed  the 
attainment  of  this  office  to  be  the  summit  of  his  ambition,  and 
before  sleeping  wrote  the  President  a  note  of  grateful  thanks, 
declaring,  however,  that  more  than  office  he  prized  the  Presi 
dent's  friendship  and  good-will. 


CHAPTER  XLYI. 

Mr.  Chase  to  the  President. 

"WASHINGTON,  December  20,  18C2. 

"  .  .  .  .  T  RESIGN  the  office  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  which  I  have 

-JL    had  the  honor  to  hold  under  your  appointment. 
"  Whatever  service  my  successor  may  desire  of  me,  in  making  him  ac 
quainted  with  the  condition  and  operations  of  the  department,  will  be  most 
cheerfully  rendered.  ..." 

The  President  to  Mr.  Chase. 

"December  20,  1862. 

"  Hon.  Secretary  of  the  Treasury :  Please  do  not  go  out  of  town. 
The  President  to  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Chase. 

"EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  WASHINGTON,  December  20,  1862. 

"  .  .  .  .  You  have  respectively  tendered  me  your  resignations  as  Secre 
tary  of  State  and  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States.  I  am 
apprised  of  the  circumstances  which  may  render  this  course  personally 
desirable  to  each  of  you ;  but  after  most  anxious  consideration,  my  delib 
erate  judgment  is  that  the  public  interest  does  not  admit  of  it.  I  have 
therefore  to  request  that  you  will  resume  the  duties  of  your  respective  de 
partments.  ..." 

Mr.  Seward  to  Mr.  Chase. 

"WASHINGTON,  December  21,  1862. 

"  ....  I  have  this  morning  sent  to  the  President  a  note  of  which  the 
inclosed  is  a  copy.  ..." 

Mr.  Seward's  Note  to  the  President. 
"DEPABTMENT  OF  STATE,  WASHINGTON,  December  21,  1862;  Sunday  Morning. 

"  .  ...  I  have  cheerfully  resumed  the  functions  of  this  department,  in 
obedience  to  your  command.  ..." 


490  I^FE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Seward. 

"  COBNER  E  AND  SIXTH  STREETS,  WASHINGTON,  December  21,  1862. 

"  ....  I  have  received  your  note,  and  also  a  call  from  Mr.  Nicolay,  to 
whom  I  have  promised  to  send  the  President  an  answer  to-morrow  morning. 

"  My  reflections  strengthen  my  conviction  that  being  once  honorably 
out  of  the  Cabinet,  no  important  public  interest  now  requires  my  return 
to  it.  If  I  yield  this  judgment,  it  will  be  in  deference  to  apprehensions 
which  really  seem  to  me  to  be  unfounded.  I  will  sleep  on  it.  ...  " 

Mr.  Chase  to  the  President. 

"WASHINGTON,  December  22,  1862. 

"  ....  On  Saturday  afternoon  I  received  your  note  addressed  to  Mr. 
Seward  and  myself,  desiring  us  to  resume  the  charge  of  our  respective  de 
partments.  I  had  just  written  you  a  letter  expressing  quite  another  judg 
ment,  and  that  you  may  fully  understand  my  sentiments  I  now  send  that 
letter  to  you. 

"Your  note  of  course  required  me  to  reconsider  my  views ;  and  a  further 
reason  for  reconsideration  was  next  day  furnished,  in  the  receipt  from  Mr. 
Seward  of  a  copy  of  his  reply  to  a  note  from  you — identical  with  that  sent 
to  me — announcing  that  he  had  resumed  the  duties  of  the  State  Depart 
ment. 

"  I  cannot  say  that  reflection  has  much,  if  at  all,  changed  my  original 
impression  ;  but  it  has  led  me  to  the  conclusion  that  I  ought  in  this  mat 
ter  to  conform  my  action  to  your  judgment  and  wishes. 

"  I  shall  therefore  resume  my  post  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury ;  ready, 
however,  at  any  moment  to  resign  it,  if,  in  your  judgment,  the  success 
of  your  Administration  may  be  in  the  slightest  degree  promoted  there 
by » 

Mr.  Chase  to  the  President. —  Copy  of  Letter  alluded  to  in  the  Foregoing  Note. 

"WASHINGTON,  December  20,  1862. 

"  ....  I  intended  going  to  Philadelphia  this  afternoon,  but  shall  of 
course  observe  your  direction  not  to  go  out  of  town. 

"  Will  you  allow  me  to  say  that  something  you  said  or  looked,  when  I 
handed  you  my  resignation  this  morning,  made  on  my  mind  the  impres 
sion  that  having  received  the  resignations  both  of  Governor  Seward  and 
myself,  you  felt  that  you  could  relieve  yourself  from  trouble  by  declining 
to  accept  either,  and  that  this  feeling  was  one  of  gratification  ? 

"Let  me  assure  you  that  few  things  could  give  me  so  much  satisfac 
tion  as  to  promote,  in  any  way,  your  comfort,  especially  if  I  might  pro 
mote  at  the  same  time  the  success  of  your  Administration,  and  the  good 
of  the  country  which  is  so  near  your  heart. 

"  But  I  am  very  far  from  desiring  you  to  decline  accepting  my  resigna 
tion ;  very  far  from  thinking,  indeed,  that  its  non-acceptance  and  my 


THE  CASE  OF  MARK  HOWARD.  491 

continuance  in  the  Treasury  Department  will  be  most  for  your  comfort  or 
for  the  benefit  of  the  country. 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  could  not  if  I  would,  conceal  from  myself  that 
recent  events  have  too  rudely  jostled  the  unity  of  your  Cabinet,  and  dis 
closed  an  opinion  too  deeply  seated,  and  too  generally  received  in  Con 
gress  and  in  the  country,  to  be  safely  disregarded,  that  the  concord  in 
judgment  and  action,  essential  to  successful  administration,  does  not  pre 
vail  among  its  members. 

"  By  some,  the  embarrassment  of  administration  is  attributed  to  me ; 
by  others  to  Mr.  Seward ;  by  others  still  to  other  heads  of  departments. 
Now,  neither  Mr.  Seward  nor  myself  is  essential  to  you  or  to  the  country. 
"We  both  earnestly  wish  to  be  relieved  from  the  oppressive  charge  of  our 
respective  departments,  and  we  have  both  placed  our  resignations  in  your 
hands. 

"  A  resignation  is  a  grave  act ;  never  performed  by  a  right-minded 
man  without  forethought  or  with  reserve.  I  tendered  mine  from  a  sense 
of  duty  to  the  country,  to  you,  and  to  myself;  and  I  tendered  it  to  be  ac 
cepted.  So  did,  as  you  have  been  fully  assured,  Mr.  Seward  tender  his. 

"  I  trust,  therefore,  that  you  will  regard  yourself  as  completely  relieved 
from  all  personal  considerations.  It  is  my  honest  conviction  that  we  can 
both  better  serve  you  and  the  country  at  this  time  as  private  citizens  than 
in  your  Cabinet. 

"  Retiring  from  the  post  to  which  you  called  me,  let  me  assure  you  that 
I  shall  carry  with  me  even  a  deeper  respect  and  a  warmer  affection  for  you 
than  I  brought  with  me  into  it.  ... " 

Mr.  Chase  to  the  President. 

"WASHINGTON,  February  27, 1863. 

.  4< .  .  .  .  I  learned  to-day  at  the  Senate-Chamber  that  the  nomination 
of  Mark  Howard,  to  be  collector  of  internal  revenue  for  the  First  District 
of  Connecticut,  was  rejected  by  that  body. 

"  It  is  due  to  Mr.  Howard  to  say  that  a  no  more  faithful,  capable,  or 
honest  man,  has  been  appointed  to  any  collectorship  under  the  law ;  and 
that  he  has  performed  the  responsible  duties  of  the  office  to  the  entire 
satisfaction  of  the  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue  and  myself. 

"  I  am  told  by  Senators  that  Mr.  Howard's  nomination  was  rejected  at 
the  instance  of  Senator  Dixon,  and  merely  in  deference  to  his  personal 
wishes,  notwithstanding  the  unanimous  report  of  the  Committee  on  Finance 
in  favor  of  confirmation,  and  without  the  slightest  impeachment  of  the 
character  or  capacity  of  the  nominee. 

"  Such,  I  have  no  doubt,  is  the  fact ;  and  I  feel  bound  by  my  duty  to 
an  honest  man,  to  your  Administration,  and  to  the  public  interests  placed 
under  my  charge  in  this  department,  to  protest,  most  respectfully,  against 
the  appointment  to  the  vacancy  created  by  this  rejection,  of  any  person 
recommended  by  the  gentleman  who  procured  it.  Such  an  apppointment 


492  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

would,  indeed,  manifestly  tend  to  the  grossest  abuses ;  for  if  gentlemen 
hostile  to  a  particular  nominee,  or  eager  to  secure  his  place  for  some  fa 
vorite,  can  expect  to  control  the  appointment,  after  rejection,  it  is  mani 
fest  that  confirmations  will  depend  less  on  merit  than  on  animosity  or 
favoritism. 

"  In  my  judgment,  Mr.  Howard  should  be  renominated  in  order  that 
the  Senate  may  have  an  opportunity  to  reconsider  its  action,  calmly  and 
dispassionately.  His  renomination,  under  the  circumstances,  seems  to  me 
a  simple  act  of  justice  to  him,  and  a  proper  assertion  of  your  own  right  to 
have  your  nominations  considered  on  their  merits. 

"  I,  therefore,  send  a  renomination  for  your  consideration,  and  your 
signature,  if  approved. 

"  Should  your  judgment  differ  from  mine  on  this  point,  I  shall  ask  per 
mission  to  recommend  some  other  person,  selected  on  the  same  considera 
tions  which  governed  my  original  recommendation  of  Mr.  Howard,  name 
ly,  capacity,  integrity,  and  fidelity  to  the  country  and  to  your  Adminis 
tration.  ..." 

The  President  to  Mr.  Chase. 

"WASHINGTON,  March  2, 1S63. 

"  .  .  .  .  After  much  reflection,  and  with  a  good  deal  of  pain  that  it  is 
adverse  to  your  wish,  I  have  concluded  that  it  is  best  not  to  renominate 
Mr.  Howard  for  collector  of  internal  revenue  at  Hartford.  Senator  Dixon, 
residing  at  Hartford,  and  Mr.  Loomis,  the  representative  of  the  district, 
join  in  recommending  Edward  Goodman  for  the  place,  and  so  far  no  one 
has  presented  a  different  name.  I  will  thank  you,  therefore,  to  send  me 
a  nomination  at  once  for  Mr.  Goodman.  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  to  the  President,  ~but  not  sent. 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  8,  1863. 

" .  .  .  .  Finding  myself  unable  to  approve  the  manner  in  which  selec 
tions  for  appointment  to  important  trusts  in  this  department  have  been 
recently  made,  and  being  unwilling  to  remain  responsible  for  its  adminis 
tration,  under  existing  circumstances,  I  respectfully  resign  the  office  of 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  to  the  President. 

"  WASHINGTON,  May  11, 1868. 

" .  .  .  .  Some  weeks  ago  you  verbally  directed  me  to  investigate  the 
papers  connected  with  the  case  of  collector  of  the  Puget  Sound  district, 
and  to  report  the  result  to  you. 

"Almost  immediately  afterward,  important  business  of  my  department 
called  me  to  the  Eastern  cities.  On  leaving,  I  directed  the  Assistant 
Secretary  to  examine  all  the  papers,  arrange  them  in  proper  order,  and 
make  a  brief  of  the  contents,  so  that,  on  my  return,  I  could  at  once  make 
the  investigation  you  required. 


CASE  OF  VICTOR  SMITH.  493 

"I  came  back  on  Friday  night  (8th),  and  was  informed  by  the 
Assistant  Secretary  that  you  had  already  directed  him  to  make  out  and 
send  to  you  a  commission  for  a  new  collector. 

"  This  information  surprised  and  greatly  pained  me ;  for  I  had  not 
thought  it  possible  that  you  would  remove  an  officer  of  my  department 
without  awaiting  the  result,  although  somewhat  delayed,  of  an  investi 
gation,  directed  by  yourself,  and  appoint  a  successor,  for  whose  action  I 
must  be  largely  responsible,  without  even  consulting  me  on  the  subject. 

"  To-day,  I  have  received  your  note,  stating  that  the  person  for  whom, 
in  my  absence,  a  commission  was  prepared,  is  deceased ;  and  directing  one 
to  be  made  out  for  another  person  of  whom  I  know  absolutely  nothing. 

"It  has  been  and  is  my  ardent  desire  to  serve  you,  by  faithful  service 
to  the  country,  in  the  responsible  post  to  which  you  have  called  me  ;  but  I 
cannot  hope  to  succeed  in  doing  so  if  the  selection  of  persons  to  fill 
subordinate  places  in  the  department  is  to  be  made,  not  only  without  my 
concurrence,  but  without  my  knowledge. 

"  I  can  ask,  of  course,  nothing  more  than  conference.  The  right  of 
appointment  belongs  to  you  ;  and  if,  after  fair  consideration  of  my  views, 
in  any  case,  your  judgment  in  relation  to  a  proper  selection  differs  from 
mine,  it  is  my  duty  to  acquiesce  cheerfully  in  your  determination;  unless, 
indeed,  the  case  be  one  of  such  a  character  as  to  justify  my  withdrawal 
from  my  post.  I  have,  however,  a  right  to  be  consulted.  That  right  was 
virtually  conceded  to  me  when  you  invited  me  to  assume  the  charge  of 
the  department,  and  make  myself  responsible  for  its  administration. 

*'  The  blank  commission  which  you  direct  me  to  send  you  is  inclosed  ; 
for  to  obey  your  directions,  so  long  as  I  shall  hold  office  under  you,  is  my 
duty.  It  is  inclosed,  however,  with  my  most  respectful  protest  against 
the  precedent,  and  with  the  assurance  that  if  you  find  any  thing  in  my 
views  to  which  your  own  sense  of  duty  will  not  permit  you  to  assent,  I 
will  unhesitatingly  relieve  you  from  all  embarrassment,  as  far  as  I  am 
concerned,  by  tendering  you  my  resignation.  .  .  .  "  1 

1  This  letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln  grew  out  of  the  case  of  Victor  Smith,  who  had  been 
appointed  collector  for  the  district  of  Puget  Sound  upon  Mr.  Chase's  own  responsi 
bility;  Smith  being  an  old  Ohio  acquaintance  of  perfectly  good  character.  The 
office  was  of  considerable  importance  ;  but  Victor  Smith  was  a  man  not  very  likely 
to  become  popular  on  the  Pacific  coast — or  anywhere  else.  He  believed  in  spirit- 
rappings,  and  was  an  avowed  abolitionist ;  he  whined  a  great  deal  about  "  progress," 
was  somewhat  arrogant  in  manner  and  intolerant  in  speech ;  and  speedily  made 
'himself  thoroughly  unpopular  in  his  office.  Grave  charges  were  alleged  against 
him,  but  they  were  not  sustained ;  and  a  deputation  of  citizens  came  all  the  way 
from  Puget's  Sound  to  Washington  to  secure  bis  removal,  and  spent  more  money  in 
coming  and  going  than  the  office  was  worth.  Smith  told  his  side  of  the  story  ;  the 
Secretary  believed  him,  and  convinced  that  to  make  the  removal  would  work  injury 
to  the  public  service  and  wrong  to  an  innocent  man,  resolved  to  stand  by  him  even 
to  the  point  of  relinquishing  office.  During  Mr.  Chase's  temporary  absence  from 
Washington  the  President  appointed  Henry  Clay  Wilson  collector  in  Smith's  place, 


494:  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Mr.  Chase  to  Daniel  8.  Dickinson,  of  New  York. 

""WASHINGTON,  November  18,  1863. 

" .  .  .  .  There  is  to  be  a  convention  of  War  Democrats  at  Chicago  on 
the  25th.  I  hope  you  will  be  there.  I  think  it  of  great  importance  that 
you  should  be. 

"  Connected  as  my  name  is  more  or  less  with  the  next  canvass,  it  may 
seem  'not  exactly  proper  for  me  to  offer  any  suggestions ;  but  as  I  prize  the 
success  of  principles  and  the  permanence  of  organization  on  principles  far 
more  highly  than  any  thing  personal  to  myself,  I  shall  write  you  freely, 
trusting  to  your  friendly  sentiments  for  right  construction. 

u  Democracy  is  founded  on  the  rights  of  men,  and  cannot  deny  rights 
to  any  without  inconsistency  and  loss.  Why  not  declare  this  ? 

"  Why  not  declare  what  all  believe,  that  the  most  exact  and  intense 
negative  of  democracy  is  slavery  ? 

"  Why  not  say  in  so  many  words  that  Democracy,  having  imposed 
limits  on  itself  by  the  national  Constitution,  was  faithful  and  remains 
faithful  to  its  obligations  ;  but  that  slaveholders  having  made  war  on  the 
country,  and  having  forced  the  State  governments  controlled  by  them 
into  rebellion,  slavery  ceased  to  be  entitled,  in  rebel  States,  to  the  benefits 
of  those  obligations,  and  was  properly  abolished  by  the  proclamation  ? 

"  Why  not  add  that  no  man  is  entitled  to  the  name  of  loyal  in  rebel 
States  who  does  not  explicitly  recognize  and  sincerely  accept  the  freedom 
of  the  laborers  and  their  right  to  wages  for  work  ? 

"Having  thus  defined  unconditional  loyalty,  why  not  insist  on  recog 
nizing  the  unconditionally  loyal  people  of  each  rebel  State,  and  on  support 
ing  them  in  their  efforts  to  reorganize  their  State  governments  on  the  basis 
of  slavery  prohibition  and  due  provision  against  future  secession  ? 

"  Why  not  avow  active  sympathy  with  the  unconditional  Union  men 
everywhere,  and  invite  all  to  rally  on  this  genuine  Democratic  ground  ? 

"  I  verily  believe  that  in  this  way  the  future  may  be  secured  by  the 
regeneration  of  the  Democracy.  I  doubt  all  other  ways.  But  regenera 
tion  implies  renewed  faith  in  fundamental  principles  and  their  fearless 
avowal.  ..." 

'    To  ex- Governor  William  Sprague. 

"  WASHINGTON,  November  26,  1863. 

"  ....  If  I  were  controlled  by  merely  personal  sentiments,  I  should 
prefer  the  reelection  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  that  of  any  other  man.  /But  I  doubt 
the  expediency  of  reflecting  anybody,  and  I  think  a  man  of  different 
qualities  from  those  the  President  has  will  be  needed  for  the  next  four 
years.  I  am  not  anxious  to  be  regarded  as  that  man ;  and  I  am  quite 
willing  to  leave  that  question  to  the  decision  of  those  who  agree  in  think 
ing  that  some  such  man  should  be  chosen. 

but  Henry  Clay  Wilson  was  dead  at  the  time  his  appointment  was  made,  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  thereupon  appointed  another  Wilson.  This  proceeding  roused  Mr.  Chase's 
anger,  and  he  sent  the  letter  printed  in  the  text. 


THE  PRESIDENCY  IN   1864.  495 

"I  can  never  permit  myself  to  be  driven  into  any  hostile  or  unfriendly 
position  as  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  His  course  toward  me  has  always  been  so 
fair  and  kind;  his  progress  toward  entire  agreement  with  me  on  the 
great  question  of  slavery  has  been  so  constant,  though  rather  slower  than 
I  wished  for,  and  his  general  character  is  so  marked  by  traits  which  com 
mand  respect  and  affection,  that  I  can  never  consent  to  any  thing  which  he 
himself  could  or  would  consider  as  incompatible  with  perfect  honor  and 
good  faith,  if  I  were  capable — which  I  hope  I  am  not — of  a  departure, 
from  either,  even  where  an  enemy  might  be  concerned.  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  to  Hiram  Barney. 

"WASHINGTON,  December  1,  1863. 

" .  .  .  .  Ray  wishes  you  may  come  and  so  do  I,  though  by  no  means 
certain  it  is  of  much  consequence  you  should. 

"  The  President  will  make  many  important  recommendations  in  his 
message,  which  I  am  afraid  he  will  injure  by  too  much  specification  and 
detail.  Possibly  you  may  be  of  use  to  the  country  and  to  the  President, 
by  coming.  ..." 


Mr.  Chase  to  E.  A.  Spencer,  Madison,  Wis. 

"  WASHINGTON,  December  4,  1863. 

" ....  I  have  not  the  slightest  wish  to  press  any  claims  upon  the 
consideration  of  friends  or  the  public.  There  is  certainly  a  purpose, 
however,  to  use  my  name,  and  I  do  not  feel  bound  to  object  to  it.  On  the 
contrary,  were  the  post  in  which  these  friends  desire  to  place  me  as  low  as 
it  is  high,  I  should  feel  bound  to  render  in  it  all  the  service  possible  to  our 
common  country.  ..." 

To  William  Orton,  Esq.,  of  New  York. 

"WASHINGTON,  December  18,  1S63. 

".  .  .  .  The  only  thing  out  of  place  in  your  letter  is  your  quasi-apology 
for  freedom  in  writing. 

"  I  have  never  doubted  Mr.  Barney's  integrity  or  his  personal  friend 
ship.  I  have  known  him  more  than  twenty  years ;  and  to  lose  faith  in 
him  would  be  like  a  wrench  from  old  moorings.  ..." 

The  President  to  Mr.  Chase. 

"WASHINGTON,  January  11,  1864. 

" ....  I  am  receiving  letters  and  dispatches  indicating  an  expectation 
that  Mr.  Barney  is  to  leave  the  custom-house  at  New  York.  Have  you 
anything  on  the  subject?  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  to  the  President. 

"WASHINGTON,  January  18,  1864. 

" ....  I  am  to-day  fifty-six  years  old.  I  have  never  consciously  and 
deliberately  injured  one  fellow-man.  It  is  too  late  for  me  to  begin  by 


496  L!FE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

sacrificing  to  clamor  the  reputation  of  a  man  -whom  I  have  known  for 
more  than  twenty  years,  and  whose  repute  for  honesty  has  been  all  that 
time  unsullied.  I  shall  not  recommend  the  removal  of  Mr.  Barney,  except 
upon  such  show  of  misconduct,  or  incapacity,  as  makes  it  my  duty  to  do 
so.  In  such  a  case  I  shall  not  shrink  from  my  duty. 

"  I  pretend  no  indifference  to  the  consequences,  personal  to  myself, 
which  you  refer  to  as  likely  to  follow  this  avowal  on  my  part.  But  the 
approval  of  my  own  conscience  is  dearer  to  me  than  political  position,  and 
I  shall  cheerfully  sacrifice  the  latter  to  preserve  the  former. 

u  Some  days  since  you  sent  me  a  note  in  relation  to  a  biographical  sketch 
to  be  printed  in  a  Philadelphia  periodical.  It  was  a  matter  in  which  I 
had  no  concern.  If  anybody  wants  my  autograph,  and  I  have  time,  I  give 
it ;  if  anybody  wants  to  take  my  daguerreotype  or  photograph,  and  I  have 
time,  I  sit  for  it ;  if  anybody  wants  to  take  my  life,  'in  the  way  of  a  bio 
graphical  sketch,  I  let  him  take  it,  and  if  I  have  time  give  such  information 
as  is  wanted,  that  he  may  take  it  the  more  readily.  Some  friends  wanted 
such  a  sketch  prepared,  and  engaged  a  gentleman  to  prepare  it.  The  pub 
lisher  of  the  American  Exchange  and  Eeview — a  respectable  periodical,  by- 
the-way,  I  am  told — was  about  to  print  a  series  of  such  sketches,  and  pro 
posed  to  begin  with  one  of  me.  How  could  I  object  ?  He  asked  for 
subscriptions,  and  obtained  them.  How  could  I  control  or  supervise  that  ? 
I  was  very  busy  with  the  affairs  of  my  department,  and  had  no  time  to 
look  after  such  matters,  even  had  I  been  aware  of  what  was  being  done. 
If  I  had  been  consulted,  I  should  certainly  have  objected  to  any  subscrip 
tion  by  Mr.  Jay  Cooke  or  his  brother,  except  such  a  moderate  one  as  any 
friend  might  have  made.  Not  that  any  wrong  was  intended  or  done ;  but 
because  the  act  was  'subject  to  misconstruction,  and  there  are  so  many 
ready  to  misconstrue.  Mr.  Jay  Cooke  is  a  friend,  and  though  he  did  not 
subscribe  to  the  sketch,  he  doubtless  sanctioned  the  subscription  of  his 
brother  Henry,  who  is  also  a  friend  (and  the  son  of  a  friend),  whose  friend 
ship  was  formed  when  I  was  powerless  to  bestow  favors.  Neither  of  the 
brothers,  nor  the  father,  has  ever  received  at  my  hands  since  I  have  had 
some  power,  any  favor  which  they  have  not  earned  by  strenuous  and 
untiring  labors  for  the  public  interest ;  nor  any  which  my  worst  enemy 
would  not  have  received  as  freely  had  he  rendered  the  same  services. 
What  Mr.  H.  D.  Cooke  did  about  the  unfortunate  biography  was  done  of 
his  own  accord  without  prompting  from  me,  and  his  brother's  approval 
was  given  in  the  same  way.  .  .  . 

"  You  will  pardon  me  if  I  write  as  one  somewhat  moved.  It  makes  me 
hate  public  life  when  I  realize  how  powerless  are  the  most  faithful  labors 
and  the  most  upright  conduct  to  protect  any  man  from  carping  envy  or 
malignant  denunciations  ;  and  how  little  he  can  expect  even  from  the  best 
and  most  inteligent  when  such  noises  prevail.  It  is  almost  equally  pain 
ful  to  think  how  little  friends  are  disposed  to  bear  with  mistakes  and  inad 
vertences  of  other  friends,  and  how  ready  to  make  me  responsible  for 
theirs  as  well  as  my  own.  ..." 


THE  PRESIDENCY  IN   1864.  497 

To  James  C.  Hall,  Esq.,  Toledo,  Ohio. 

"WASHINGTON,  January  18,  1864.  / 

'*•••,  Your  kind  note  is  just  received.  As  it  has  been  so  long  on  the 
way  I  have  telegraphed  you  that  I  will  reply  by  mail. 

/  "  At  the  instance  of  many  who  think  that  the  public  interests  would  bevx 
promoted  by  my  election  to  the  chief  magistracy,  a  committee,  composed 
of  prominent  Senators  and  Representatives  and  citizens,  has  been  organized 
here  for  taking  measures  to  promote  that  object.  / 

"  This  committee,  though  a  sub-committee,  has  conferred  with  me,  and 
I  have  explained  to  them  the  objections  which  seemed  to  me  to  exist 
against  any  use  of  my  name  in  that  connection.  They  have  taken  these 
objections  into  consideration,  and  assure  me  that  they  think  I  ought  not 
to  refuse  its  use ;  and  I  have  consented  to  their  wishes,  assuring  them, 
however,  that  whenever  any  consideration,  either  by  them  or  by  the  friends 
of  the  cause,  thought  entitled  to  weight,  should  indicate  the  expediency  of 
any  other  course,  no  consideration  of  personal  delicacy  should  be  allowed 
to  prevent  its  being  taken. 

.  "  If  I  know  my  own  heart,  I  desire  nothing  so  much  as  the  suppression 
of  this  rebellion  and  the  reestablishment  of  union,  order,  and  prosperity, 
on  sure  and  safe  foundations ;  and  I  should  despise  myself  if  I  felt  capable 
of  allowing  any  personal  objects  to  influence  me  to  any  action  which 
would  affect,  by  one  jot  or  tittle,  injuriously,  the  accomplishment  of  those 
objects.  And  it  is  a  source  of  real  gratification  to  believe  that  those  who 
desire  my  nomination,  desire  it  on  public  grounds  alone,  and  will  not  hesi 
tate,  in  any  matter  which  may  concern  me,  to  act  upon  such  grounds  and 
on  su«h  grounds  only. 

/"Of  course,  under  these  circumstances,  I  desire  the  support  of  Ohio. 
If,  however,  it  shall  be  the  pleasure  of  a  majority  of  our  friends  in  Ohio  to 
indicate  a  preference  for  another,  I  shall  accept  their  action  with  that  cheer 
ful  acquiescence  which  is  due  from  me  to  friends  who  have  trusted  and 
honored  me  beyond  any  claim  or  merit  of  mine." 


7 


f  Mr.  Chase  to  Jacob  Heaton,  Esq. 

"  WASHINGTON,  January  28, 1864.     / 

" ....  I  return  Mr.  Bachelor's  letter.  /I  should  despise  myself  ill 
felt  capable  of  appointing  or  removing  a  man  for  the  sake  of  the  presiden 
cy.  Captain  Grace  has  been  retained  because  I  have  been  assured  by 
many  reliable  political  friends  that  he  discharged  his  duties  faithfully  and 
well,  and  because  there  was  no  proof  that  he  was  hostile  to  the  Govern 
ment.  I  was  at  one  time  strongly  inclined  to  remove  him  because  of 
allegations  that  he  especially  consorted  and  sympathized  with  the  men 
who  obstruct,  to  the  best  of  their  ability,  the  prosecution  of  the  war,  and 
I  have  not  yet  absolutely  determined  what  shall  be  done.  When  I  act  I 
shall  act  upon  public  considerations,  not  personal. 

"I  have  never  sought  to  manage  newspapers.    If  they  have  supported 


498  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

me  I  have  been  glad  of  it,  and  grateful.  If  they  have  opposed,  it  has 
been  their  own  matter,  and  I  have  let  them  take  their  course.  I  have 
never  undertaken  and  never  shall  undertake,  to  manipulate  the  press.  .  .  . 
/  "  So  far  as  the  presidency  is  concerned,  I  must  leave  that  wholly  to  the 
people.  Those  of  them  who  think  that  the  public  good  will  be  promoted 
by  adherence  to  the  one-term  principle,  and  by  the  use  of  my  name,  are 
fully  competent,  and  far  more  competent  than  I  am,  to  bring  the  matter 
before  the  public  generally  ;  and  the  people  will  dispose  of  the  case  ac 
cording  to  their  own  judgment.  Whatever  disposition  they  make  of  it,  I 
shall  be  content.  My  time  is  wholly  absorbed  by  my  public  duties  ;  and 
I  can  best  serve  the  public,  and  my  friends  too,  by  the  faithful  discharge 
of  them.  .  .  . 


f 


Mr.  Clime  to  Flamen  Ball,  Esq.,  Cincinnati, 

"WASHINGTON,  February  2,  1864. 

"  .  .  .  .  You  ask  for  the  signs  of  the  times.  At  present  they  seem  to 
indicate  the  renomination  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  His  personal  popularity  is 
great  and  deserved.  If  to  his  kindliness  of  spirit  and  good  sense  he  joined 
strong  will  and  energetic  action,  there  would  be  little  left  to  wish  for  in 
him.  As  it  is,  I  think  that  he  will  be  likely  to  close  his  first  term  with 
more  glory  than  he  will  the  second,  should  he  be  reflected.  .  .  . 

"  Of  course,  if  my  name  is  to  be  brought  forward  at  all,  I  shall  be  glad 
to  have  Ohio  decidedly  on  my  side.  Indeed,  if  Ohio  should  express  a 
preference  for  any  other  person,  I  would  not  allow  my  name  to  be  used/' 

"I  shall  be  entirely  content  to  retire,  as  soon  as  the  condition  of  the 
finances  will  permit,  to  a  private  station,  and  hope  their  condition  will 
permit  it  before  the  lapse  of  many  months.  ..." 

The  President  to  Mr.  Chase. 

"WASHINGTON,  February  12,  1864. 

"  ....  I  have  felt  considerable  anxiety  concerning  the  custom-house 
at  New  York.  Mr.  Barney  has  suffered  no  abatement  of  my  confidence  in 
his  honor  and  integrity  ;  and  yet  I  am  convinced  that  he  has  ceased  to  be 
master  of  his  position.  A  man  by  the  name  of  Bailey,1  whom  I  am 
unconscious  of  ever  having  seen,  or  even  having  heard  of  except  in  this 
connection,  expects  to  be,  and  even  now  assumes  to  be,  collector  de  facto, 
while  Mr.  Barney  remains  nominally  so.  This  Mr.  Bailey,  as  I  understand, 
having  been  summoned  as  a  witness  to  testify  before  a  committee  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  which  purposed  investigating  the  New  York 

1  Mr.  J.  F.  Bailey  was  a  special  agent  of  the  Treasury  Department,  assigned  to 
duty  in  connection  with  the  operations  of  the  New  York  Custom-House.  Before 
that  time  he  had  been  a  clerk  in  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  He  was 
a  man  of  great  industry  and  energy,  of  admitted  ability,  and  of  unimpeached  per 
sonal  character  until  a  much  later  period.  He  was  responsibly  indorsed  ;  among 
others  by  Senator  Fessenden.  He  was  full  of  ambition,  and  ought  to  have  risen 
to  an  honorable  eminence. 


"THE  POMEROY  CIRCULAR."  499 

Custom-House,  took  occasion  to  call  on  the  chairman  in  advance,  and  to 
endeavor  to  smother  the  investigation,  by  saying,  among  other  things,  that 
whatever  might  be  developed,  the  President  would  take  no  action,  and 
that  the  committee  would  thereby  be  placed  unpleasantly.  The  public 
interest  cannot  fail  to  suffer  in  the  hands  of  this  irresponsible  and 
unscrupulous  man.  I  propose  sending  Mr.  Barney  minister  to  Portugal, 
as  evidence  of  my  continued  confidence  in  him.  I  wrote  the  draft  of  this 
letter  two  weeks  ago,  but  delayed  sending  it  for  a  reason  which  I  will 
state  when  I  see  you.  .  .  . " 

"  The  Pomeroy  Circular.'1'1 

["CONFIDENTIAL."] 

"WASHINGTON,  February,  1864. 

".  .  .  .  The  movements  recently  made  throughout  the  country,  to 
secure  the  renomination  of  President  Lincoln,  render  necessary  counter 
action  on  the  part  of  those  unconditional  friends  of  the  Union  who  differ 
from  the  policy  of  the  Administration. 

"  So  long  as  no  efforts  were  made  to  forestall  the  political  action  of  the 
people,  it  was  both  wise  and  patriotic  for  all  true  friends  of  the  Govern 
ment  to  devote  their  influence  to  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion ;  but 
when  it  becomes  evident  that  party  and  the  machinery  of  official  influence 
are  being  used  to  secure  the  perpetuation  of  the  present  Administration, 
those  who  conscientiously  believe  that  the  interests  of  the  country  and  of 
freedom  demand  a  change  in  favor  of  vigor  and  purity  and  nationality, 
have  no  choice  but  to  appeal  at  once  to  the  people  before  it  is  too  late  to 
secure  a  fair  discussion  of  principles.  Those  in  behalf  of  whom  this  appeal 
is  made  have  thoughtfully  surveyed  the  political  field,  and  have  arrived 
at  the  following  conclusions : 

"  1.  That  even  were  the  reelection  of  Mr.  Lincoln  desirable,  it  is  prac 
tically  impossible  against  the  union  of  influences  which  will  oppose  him. 

"  2.  That  should  he  be  reflected,  his  manifest  tendency  toward  com 
promises  and  temporary  expedients  of  policy  will  become  stronger  during 
a  second  term  than  it  has  been  in  the  first,  and  the  cause  of  human  liberty, 
and  the  dignity  of  the  nation  suffer  proportionately,  while  the  war  may 
continue  to  languish  during  his  whole  Administration,  till  the  public  debt 
shall  become  a  burden  too  great  to  be  borne. 

*'  3.  That  the  patronage  of  the  Government  through  the  necessities  of 
the  war  has  been  so  rapidly  increased,  and  to  such  an  enormous  extent, 
and  so  loosely  placed,  as  to  render  the  application  of  the  one-term  prin 
ciple  absolutely  essential  to  the  certain  safety  of  our  republican  institutions. 

"  4.  That  we  find  united  in  Hon.  Salmon  P.  Chase  more  of  the  qualities 
needed  in  a  President,  during  the  next  four  years,  than  are  combined  in 
any  other  available  candidate. '  His  record  is  clear  and  unimpeachable, 
showing  him  to  be  a  statesman  of  rare  ability,  and  an  administrator  of 
the.  highest  order,  while  his  private  character  furnishes  the  surest  available 
guarantee  of  economy  and  purity  in  the  management  of  public  affairs. 


500  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

U5.  That  the  discussion  of  the  presidential  question  already  commenced 
by  the  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  has  developed  a  popularity  and  strength  in 
Mr.  Chase  unexpected  even  to  his  warmest  admirers,  and  while  we  are 
aware  that  its  strength  is  at  present  unorganized,  and  in  no  condition  to 
manifest  its  real  magnitude,  we  are  satisfied  that  it  only  needs  a  systematic 
and  faithful  effort  to  develop  it  to  an  extent  sufficient  to  overcome  all 
opposing  obstacles.  For  these  reasons  the  friends  of  Mr.  Chase  have 
determined  on  measures  which  shall  present  his  claims  fairly  and  at  once 
to  the  country.  A  central  organization  has  been  effected,  which  already 
has  its  connections  in  all  the  States,  and  the  object  of  which  is  to  enable 
his  friends  everywhere  most  effectually  to  promote  his  elevation  to  the 
presidency.  "We  wish  the  hearty  cooperation  of  all  those  who  are  in  favor 
of  the  speedy  restoration  of  the  Union  on  the  basis  of  universal  freedom, 
and  who  desire  an  administration  of  the  Government  during  the  first 
period  of  its  new  life,  which  shall  to  the  fullest  extent  develop  the  capacity 
of  free  institutions,  enlarge  the  resources  of  the  country,  diminish  the  bur 
dens  of  taxation,  elevate  the  standard  of  public  and  private  morality,  vin 
dicate  the  honor  of  the  republic  before  the  world,  and  in  all  things  make 
our  American  nationality  the  fairest  example  for  imitation  which  human 
progress  has  ever  achieved.  If  these  objects  meet  your  approval,  you  can 
render  efficient  aid  by  exerting  yourself  at  once  to  organize  your  section 
of  the  country,  and  by  corresponding  with  the  chairman  of  the  National 
Executive  Committee,  for  the  purpose  either  of  receiving  or  imparting 
information.  ..." 

/  Mr.  Chase  to  the  President. 

"  WASHINGTON,  February  22,  1S64. 

" .  .  .  .  It  is  probable  you  have  already  seen  a  letter  printed  in  the 
Constitutional  Union  on  Saturday  afternoon,  and  reprinted  in  the  In 
telligencer  this  morning,  written  by  Senator  Pomeroy,1  as  chairman  of  a 
committee  of  my  political  friends.  I  had  no  knowledge  of  the  existence 
of  this  letter  before  I  saw  it  in  the  Union. 

11 A  few  weeks  ago,  several  gentlemen  called  on  me  and  expressed  their 
desire,  which,  they  said,  was  shared  by  many  earnest  friends  of  our  com 
mon  cause,  that  I  would  allow  my  name  to  be  submitted  to  the  consideration 
of  the  people,  in  connection  with  the  approaching  election  for  Chiet 
Magistrate.  I  replied  that  I  feared  such  use  might  impair  my  usefulness 
as  head  of  the  Treasury  Department,  and  that  I  much  preferred  to  continue 
my  labors  where  I  am,  and  free,  from  disturbing  influences,  until  I  could 
honorably  retire  from  them.  "YVe  had  several  interviews.  After  con 
sultation  and  conference  with  others,  they  expressed  their  united  judgment 
that  the  use  of  my  name  as  proposed  would  not  affect  my  usefulness  in  my 
present  position;  and  that  I  ought  to  consent  to  it.  I  accepted  their 
judgment  as  decisive ;  but  at  the  same  time  told  them,  distinctly,  that  I 

1  Mr.  Chase  was  mistaken ;  this  circular  was  not  written  by  Mr.  Pomeroy,  but  by 
Mr.  J.  Mi.  WinchelL  Mr.  Pomeroy  signed  it  as  chairman  of  the  committee. 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  MR.  CHASE.  501 

could  render  them  no  help,  except  what  might  come  incidentally  from  the 
faithful  discharge  of  public  duties ;  for  these  must  have  my  whole  time. 
I  said  also  that  I  desired  them  to  regard  themselves  as  not  only  entirely  at 
liberty,  but  as  requested,  to  withdraw  my  name  from  consideration,  when 
ever  in  their  judgment  the  public  interest  would  be  promoted  by  so 
doing. 

"  The  organization  of  the  committee,  I  presume,  followed  these  conver 
sations  ;  but  I  was  not  consulted  about  it,  nor  have  I  been  consulted  as  to 
its  action ;  nor  do  I  even  know  who  composed  it.  I  have  never  wished 
that  my  name  should  have  a  moment's  thought  in  comparison  with  the 
common  cause  of  enfranchisement  and  restoration,  or  be  continued  before 
the  public  a  moment  after  the  indication  of  a  preference,  by  the  friends  of 
that  cause,  for  another. 

"  I  have  thought  this  explanation  due  to  you  as  well  as  to  myself.  If 
there  is  any  thing  in  my  action  or  position  which,  HI  your  judgment,,  will 
prejudice  the  public  interest  under  my  charge,  I  beg  you  to  say  so.  I  do 
not  wish  to  administer  the  Treasury  Department  one  day  without  your 
entire  confidence.  For  yourself  I  cherish  sincere  respect  and  esteem ;  and, 
permit  me  to  add,  affection.  Differences  of  opinion  as  to  administrative 
action  have  not  changed  these  sentiments ;  nor  have  they  been  changed 
by  assaults  upon  me  by  persons  who  profess  themselves  the  special  repre 
sentatives  of  your  views  and  policy.  You  are  not  responsible  for  acts  not 
your  own ;  nor  will  you  hold  me  responsible  except  for  what  I  do  or  say 
myself. 

u  Great  numbers  now  desire  your  reelection.  Should  their  wishes  be 
fulfilled  by  the  suffrages  of  the  people,  I  hope  to  carry  with  me  into  pri-, 
vate  life  the  sentiments  I  now  cherish,  whole  and  unimpaired.  ..."  / 

The  President  to  Mr.  Chase. 

"WASHINGTON,  February  23, 1864. 

"  .  .  .  ;  Yours  of  yesterday  in  relation  to  the  paper  issued  by  Senator 
Pomeroy  was  duly  received ;  and  I  write  this  note  merely  to  say  I  will 
answer  a  little  more  fully  when  I  can  find  time  to  do  so.  ...  " 

(  The  President  to  Mr.  Chase — again. 

"  WASHINGTON,  February  29,  18C4. 

"  ....  I  would  have  taken  time  to  answer  yours  of  the  22d  sooner, 
only  that  I  did  not  suppose  any  evil  could  result  from  the  delay,  especially 
as,  by  a  note,  I  promptly  acknowledged  the  receipt  of  yours,  and  promised 
a  fuller  answer.  Now,  on  consideration,  I  find  there  is  really  very  little 
to  say.  My  knowledge  of  Mr.  Pomeroy's  letter  having  been  made  pullic 
came  to  me  only  the  day  you  wrote ;  but  I  had,  in  spite  of  myself,  known 
of  its  existence  several  days  before.  I  have  not  yet  read  it,  and  I  think  I 
shall  not.  I  was  not  shocked  or  surprised  by  the  appearance  of  the  letter, 
because  I  had  had  knowledge  of  Mr.  Pomeroy's  committee,  and  of  secret 


502  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

issues  which,  I  supposed,  came  from  it,  and  of  secret  agents  who,  I  sup 
posed,  were  sent  out  by  it,  for  several  weeks.  I  have  known  just  as  little 
of  these  things  as  my  friends  have  allowed  me  to  know.  They  bring  the 
documents  to  me,  but  I  do  not  read  them ;  they  tell  me  what  they  think 
fit  to  tell  me,  but  I  do  not  inquire  for  more. 

"  I  fully  concur  with  you  that  neither  of  us  can  be  justly  held  respon 
sible  for  what  our  respective  friends  may  do  without  our  instigation  or 
countenance ;  and  I  assure  you,  as  you  have  assured  me,  that  no  assault 
has  been  made  upon  you  by  my  instigation,  or  with  my  countenance./ 

"  Whether  you  shall  remain  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury  Department  is 
a  question  which  I  do  not  allow  myself  to  consider  from  any  stand-point 
other  than  my  judgment  of  the  public  service ;  and,  in  that  view,  I  do  not 
perceive  occasion  for  a  change.  ..." 

Extract  from  Albert  M.  Palmer 's  Testimony  before  the  Congressional  Com 
mittee:  taken  at  Fort  Lafayette,  March  19,  1864. 

Question  by  the  chairman  of  the  Committee :  "  In  the  oath  I  adminis 
tered  to  you,  you  are  aware  I  required  you  to  tell  whatever  you  knew 
with  reference  to  any  frauds  or  improprieties  in  the  New  York  Custom- 
House.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  frauds  committed,  or  money  improp 
erly  paid  in  the  shape  of  bribes  or  presents,  in  any  department  of  the  cus 
tom-house  ?  If  you  have  any  such  information  and  can  give  the  facts  and 
names,  it  certainly  cannot  prejudice  you,  but  it  may  help  us  in  correcting 
abuses  that  do  exist." 

Palmer's  answer :  "  So  far  as  I  am  concerned,  nothing  can  prejudice 
me.  I  am  just  as  bad  off  as  I  possibly  can  be ;  a  prisoner  in  Fort  Lafay 
ette,  disgraced  and  despised  ;  and  if  I  have  no  dread  of  any  thing  in  the 
future,  I  have  no  inducement  to  conceal  any  thing  from  you.  I  have  en 
dured  as  much  suffering  and  undergone  as  much  misery  as  any  man  could 
wish  or  expect  one  to  know.  I  do  not  fear  any  thing  in  the  future,  and  I 
have  no  motive  to  conceal  any  thing  from  you,  and  I  do  not  think  there 
is  any  necessity  for  the  recommendation  of  that  to  me,  that  nothing  can 
prejudice  me,  "because  I  have  no  fear  of  being  prejudiced  ~by  any  thing.  I  say, 
solemnly,  that  I  know  nothing  more  than  I  have  told  you." 


Mr.  Chase  to  James  C.  Hall,  Esq.,  Toledo. 

"WASHINGTON,  March  5,  1864. 

"  ....  In  reply  to  a  friendly  letter  from  you,  I  wrote  you  briefly  not 
long  ago,  about  the  wishes  expressed  by  many,  that  my  name  might  be 
favorably  regarded  by  the  people  in  their  next  choice  of  a  President ;  and 
closed  by  saying  that,  should  our  friends  in  Ohio  manifest  a  preference  for 
another,  I  should  accept  their  decision  with  the  ready  acquiescence  due 
from  one  who  has  been  already  trusted  and  honored  by  them  beyond  merit 
or  expectation. 

"  The  recent  action  of  the  Union  members  of  our  Legislature  indicates 


THE  BLAIR  ASSAULT.  '503 

such  a  preference.  It  becomes  my  duty,  therefore — and  I  count  it  more  a 
privilege  than  a  duty — to  ask  that  no  further  consideration  be  given  to  my 
name. 

"  It  was  never  more  important  than  now  that  all  our  efforts  aud  all  our 
energies  should  be  devoted  to  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion,  and  to  the 
restoration  of  order  and  prosperity,  on  solid  and  sure  foundations  of  Union, 
Freedom,  and  Impartial  Justice  ;  and  I  earnestly  urge  all  with  whom  my 
counsels  may  have  weight,  to  allow  nothing  to  divide  them,  while  this 
great  work,  in  comparison  with  which  persons,  and  even  parties,  are  noth-  i 
ing,  remains  unaccomplished.  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Cooke. 

"WASHINGTON,  May  5,  1864. 

"  ....  I  hope  my  wrathiness  was  not  excessive.  Indeed,  it  was  vexa 
tious  to  think  that  all  my  labors  to  serve  our  country  had  found  recom 
pense,  so  far  as  Mr.  Lincoln's  special  friends  were  concerned,  and  with  his 
apparent  (but,  as  I  hope  and  believe,  merely  apparent)  indorsement,  only 
in  outrageous  calumny.  I  seldom  consult  personal  considerations  in  my 
public  conduct,  and  so  suppressed  my  inclination  to  resign  my  office  and 
denounce  the  conspiracy  of  which  the  Blairs  are  the  most  visible  embodi 
ments.  After  returning  from  Baltimore  I  conferred  with  Governor  Brough 
and  other  friends,  who  were  very  earnest  in  advising  against  resignation  ; 
and  I  yielded  to  their  judgment,  which,  indeed,  coincided  with  my  own, 
though  exceedingly  contrary  to  my  impulses.  Immediately  afterward  I 
was  obliged  to  visit  Philadelphia,  and  was  absent  from  Wednesday  morn 
ing  until  Saturday  night.  On  Monday  I  learned  that  the  Ohio  delegation 
had  taken  the  matter  up,  and  that  one  of  them  had  called  on  the  Presi 
dent,  who  disavowed  in  the  most  explicit  terms  all  connection  with,  or 
responsibility  for,  Blair's  assault,  and  expressed  his  decided  disapproval 
of  it.  As  this  was  merely  verbal,  however,  the  delegation  determined  to 
call  on  the  President  in  a  body,  and  make  and  present  a  distinct  statement 
in  writing — on  their  part,  of  their  advice  and  my  action,  and  their  convic 
tions  of  what  was  due  from  the  President  to  me,  to  Ohio,  and  to  the 
country ;  and  on  his  part,  such  reply  as  he  should  see  fit  to  give. 

"  Thus  the  matter  now  stands.  It  seems  now  only  simple  justice  to  me, 
that  every  friend  who  believes  I  have  done  my  duty,  should,  by  voice,  pen, 
and  press,  utter  the  sentiments  which  tljis  outrageous  attack  must  kindle 
in  honest  minds,  of  indignation  against  the  unworthy  men  who  have  set  on 
foot  and  propagated  these  vile  calumnies.  ..." 


To  Hon.  L.  D.  Stickney,  of  Florida. 

"WASHINGTON,  May  25,  1864.  / 
«    / 

"  ....  I  have  read  Dr.  Ayer's  letter  with  surprise  and  regret. /I  do 
not  know  to  whom  he  alludes  as  the  man  likely  to  be  chosen  delegate  to 
th.e  Baltimore  Convention  being  my  own  selection.  Since  my  letter  to 


504  LIFE  OF  SALMOX  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Senator  Hall,  or  rather  through  him  to  my  friends  in  Ohio  and  elsewhere, 
was  written,  I  had  neither  asked,  nor  thought,  nor  expected  to  be  nomi 
nated  for  President.  I  would  not  take  the  nomination  of  the  Baltimore 
Convention  if  it  were  tendered  to  me.  The  delegates  have  been  almost  all 
elected  under  pledge,  express  or  implied,  that  they  will  vote  for  the  re- 
nomination  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  nomination  of  any  other  man  would  be 
justly  regarded  as  a  fraud  upon  the  people;  and  I  value  conscious  in 
tegrity  of  purpose  far  more  than  office,  even  the  highest.  I  have  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  election  of  delegates  to  Baltimore — not  one  is  a 
selection  of  mine  in  any  sense — but  if  there  were  such  a  man  I  should  say 
to  him :  '  Respect  honestly  the  wishes  of  the  people  who  sent  you ;  avoid  es 
pecially  the  very  appearance  of  management  to  substitute  any  man  for  the 
man  whom  they  prefer.}/ 

u  If  the  Baltimore  Convention  is  itself  a  mistake,  the  error  cannot  be 
rectified  by  any  attempt  to  thwart  through  its  members  the  expectations 
of  their  constituents.  ..." 

To  Aaron  F.  Perry,  Esq.,  Cincinnati. 

"  WASHINGTON,  May  27,  1864.    / 

"  A  letter  has  been  shown  me  in  which  you  are  reported  as  blaming  me 
for  sending  General  Garfield  secretly  to  Mr.  Stanton  to  ask  him  to  tfse  his 
official  patronage  to  promote  my  nomination  for  the  presidency.  It  is 
also  stated  that  a  report  that  I  did  send  the  General  to  the  Secretary  for 
that  purpose  is  quite  current  in  Cincinnati. 

"  It  humbles  me  to  notice  such  a  report ;  but  if  it  can  obtain  credence 
with  such  gentlemen  as  yourself,  may  it  not  be  a  duty  to  do  so  ? 

"  There  is  not  a  word  of  truth  in  it.  Neither  secretly  nor  openly,  nei 
ther  through  General  Garfield  nor  any  other  person,  neither  directly  nor 
indirectly,  did  I  ever  suggest  to  Mr.  Stanton  or  any  head  of  department, 
or  to  any  other  officer  of  the  Government,  a  wish  for  the  use  of  official 
patronage  in  my  behalf. 

"  Why  I  should  be  thus  incessantly  pursued  with  calumny  I  do  not  un 
derstand.  I  am  in  nobody's  way,  unless  perhaps  in  the  way  of  some  who 
would  like  to  make  money  out  of  the  distresses  of  the  country.  /  There 
were  some  citizens  who  wished  that  I  might  be  President,  and  they  were 
men  of  whose  preference  any  man  might  be  proud  ;  but  when  I  saw  that 
the  use  of  my  name  was  likely  to  create  strife  and  divisions  injurious  to 
our  common  cause,  and  that  some  even  in  high  places  were  willing  that  the 
finances  of  the  country,  on  which  every  thing  depends,  should  be  embar 
rassed  and  damaged,  if  by  that  means  I  might  be  damaged,  I  gladly 
availed  myself  of  the  action  of  the  Union  members  of  the  Ohio  Legislature 
to  ask  that  my  name  no  longer  be  considered  in  connection  with  the  nom 
ination.  I  thought  I  was  acting  an  honest  and  patriotic  part.  Since 
writing  the  letter  taking  my  name  out  of  the  list  of  candidates  for  the 
nomination,  I  have  neither  sought,  nor  asked,  nor  expected  it.  I  have 


NEW  YORK  SUB-TREASURY.  505 

been  working  hard  to  raise  the  means  to  pay  and  clothe  and  feed  the  sol 
diers  and  sailors  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  and  to  defray  the  costs  of  their 
great  movements.  My  only  ambition  has  been  to  contribute  what  I  could 
in  my  place  to  the  safety  of  the  republic  and  to  promote  the  interests  of 
the  whole  people,  and  especially  o£  the  laboring  masses,  by  the  perma 
nent  establishment  of  a  sound  and  uniform  national  currency.''/ 

i    To  Hon.  William  H.  Seward. 

44  WASHINGTON,  May  SO,  1864.y 

" .  .  .  .  What  you  said  about  the  Albany  Evening  Journal  the  other 
day  induces  me  to  send  you  its  most  prominent  article  of  May  24th, 
which  has  been  inclosed  to  me. 

"  So  far  as  its  allegations  concern  me  personally,  they  are  utterly  with 
out  warrant.  /In  the  sense  intended  by  the  words,  I  have  never  been  a 
presidential  aspirant.  Since  my  letter  to  Senator  Hall,  or  rather,  through 
him  to  my  friends  in  Ohio,  I  have  avoided  all  thought  and  talk  about  the 
presidential  nomination,  and  have  certainly  neither  asked  nor  sought  nor 
expected  it  myself. 

/" The  patronage  of  this  department  is  not  and  never  has  been  used 
with  reference  to  that  nomination.  All  I  ask  for  in  any  officer  is  capacity, 
fidelity  to  trust,  and  devotion  to  Union  and  Liberty.  „,  If  there  are  sinecure 
officers  in  the  New  York  Custom-House,  secretly  at  work  to  prevent  the 
fair  expression  of  the  manifest  preference  of  the  Union  men  of  the  country, 
I  do  not  know  it.  Every  man  has  a  right  to  be  in  a  minority  if  he  chooses, 
and  often  must  be,  or  sacrifice  his  honest  convictions ;  but  no  man  has  a 
right  to  be  a  sinecure  office-holder  or  to  engage  in  secret  work  to  thwart 
the  will  of  a  majority  of  the  political  organization  to  which  he  belongs ; 
and  no  such  man  shall  hold  office  in  this  department,  or  under  it,  with  my 
consent.  •/•" 

Mr.  Chase  to  Denning  Duer,  Esq.,  New  York. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  20,  1864. 

" .  .  .  .  Will  you  accept  the  office  of  Assistant  Treasurer  ?  .  .  . 
"Governor  Morgan  and  I  have  talked  this  matter  over,  and  have  con 
cluded  that  your  appointment  is  one  fit  to  be  made ;  and  will  both  be 
gratified  if  you  think  it  is  one  fit  to  accept.  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  to  John  A.  Stewart,  Esq.,  New  York. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  25,  1S64. 

".  .  .  .  Since  receiving  your  letter  of  the  10th  of  June,  I  have  been 
endeavoring  to  find  some  successor  of  Mr.  Cisco,  equal  to  the  place,  and 
possessed  of  the  entire  confidence  of  the  public.  As  yet  I  have  been  un 
successful,  and,  in  conversation  with.  Senator  Morgan  on  the  subject,  he 
agreed  to  write  you,  urging  your  reconsideration  of  your  declension.  I 
have  also  written  to  Mr.  Cisco  expressing  my  sentiments.  Let  me  urge 


506  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

you  to  reconsider  your  conclusion,  and  let  your  country  in  this  exigency 
have  the  benefit  of  your  services.  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Cisco,  New  York. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  26, 1864. 

"  .  .  .  .  Senator  Morgan  promised  me  yesterday,  or  the  day  before,  that 
he  would  write  to  Mr.  Stewart,  urging  him  to  accept  the  post  of  Assistant 
Treasurer,  so  soon  to  be  vacated  by  you.  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  has  done 
so.  Please  see  him  immediately,  and  second  Senator  Morgan's  endeavor. 
I  should  feel  safe  with  him,  and  know  not  with  whom  else  I  should  feel 
safe,  or  at  least  so  safe.  Let  me  know  the  result  by  telegraph  to-morrow, 
that  I  may  be  able  to  act  definitely  on  Monday.  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Cisco — Telegram. 

"  WASHINGTON,  Jwie  28,  1S64. 

" .  .  .  .  Let  me  urge  you  respectfully,  but  earnestly,  to  withdraw  your 
resignation,  and  give  the  country  the  benefit  of  your  services  at  least  another 
quarter  longer.  Let  nothing,  except  the  absolute  requirements  of  your 
health,  prevent  your  consent. 

"  To  be  delivered  at  office  or  residence  immediately.  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  to  the  President. 

"  WASHINGTON,  June  28,  1864. 

"  ....  I  have  telegraped  Mr.  Cisco,  begging  him  to  withdraw  his  resig 
nation,  and  serve  at  least  another  quarter.  If  he  declines  to  do  so,  I  must 
repeat  that  in  my  judgment  the  public  interests  require  the  appointment 
of  Mr.  Field.  One  of  the  gentlemen  named  by  Senator  Morgan  is  over 
seventy,  and  another,  I  think,  over  sixty  years  old ;  and  neither  has  any 
practical  knowledge  of  the  duties  of  the  office.  They  are  both  estimable 
gentlemen,  and,  were  the  times  peaceful  and  the  business  of  the  office 
comparatively  ^mall  and  regular,  I  would  gladly  acquiesce  in  the  appoint 
ment  of  either.  But  my  duty  to  you  and  to  the  country  does  not  permit 
it  now.  I  have  already,  after  conference  with  Senator  Morgan,  offered, 
with  his  concurrence,  my  recommendation  to  your  consideration  of  three 
gentlemen,  each  admirably  qualified,  but  each  has  declined.  I  now  recom 
mend  Mr.  Field,  because  among  those  who  will  take  the  place,  I  think 
him  best  qualified,  and  only  for  that  reason.  But  this,  especially  in  these 
times,  should  be  a  controlling  reason. 

"  That  you  may  see  I  am  warranted  not  only  by  my  personal  observa 
tion,  but  by  the  opinions  of  the  best  men,  in  my  judgment,  I  inclose  with 
this  several  papers  which  have  been  sent  to  me. 

"  P.  S. — As  soon  as  Mr.  Cisco's  answer  comes,  I  will  send  it  to  you.  If 
he  declines,  I  trust  you  will  act  without  delay.  The  office  will  be  without 
a  heaa  on  the  first  of  July,  and  the  bond  to  be  given  is  ($400,000)  four 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  ..." 


FAC-SJMILE 


9trn_ 


XTNIVERSITT 


THE  SUB-TREASURER'S  OFFICE.  597 

Memorandum  for  the  President. 

" .  .  .  .  Mr.  Field  is  recommended  by  many  of  the  most  reliable  busi 
ness  men  of  New  York,  such  as  Jonathan  Sturgis,  Peter  Cooper,  Phelps? 
Dodge  &  Co.,  as  well  as  by  prominent  Republicans,  such  as  John  A.  King, 
Horace  Greeley  and  others. 

"  His  capacity  and  integrity  are  not  called  in  question  by  anybody. 

"  The  office  cannot  be  made  useful  to  the  Government,  and  especially 
to  the  Treasury  Department,  unless  administered  with  the  same  disin 
terested  integrity  and  impartiality  with  which  Mr.  Cisco  has  conducted 
it.  Mr.  Field  does  not '  claim  to  be  the  equal  of  Mr.  Cisco  in  administra 
tive  capacity,  but  will,  I  think,  endeavor  to  equal  him  in  fairness  and 
honesty  of  administration. 

"The  office  should  not  be  controlled  by  mere  party  considerations. 
Appointments  should  doubtless  be  given  to  faithful  friends  of  the  Govern 
ment  ;  but  should  be  made  otherwise  exclusively  on  grounds  of  integrity 
and  capacity.  Mr.  Field  is  a  Republican,  and  would  give  proper  political 
considerations  due  weight ;  but  he  would  not  allow  them  improper  in 
fluence.  ..." 

The  President  to  Mr.  Chase. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  28,  1864. 

" .  .  .  .  Yours,  inclosing  a  blank  nomination  for  Maunsell  B.  Field,  to 
be  Assistant  Treasurer  at  New  York,  was  received  yesterday.  I  cannot, 
without  much  embarrassment,  make  this  appointment,  principally  because 
of  Senator  Morgan's  very  firm  opposition  to  it.  Senator  Harris  has  not 
yet  spoken  to  me  on  the  subject,  though  I  understand  he  is  not  averse  to 
the  appointment  of  Mr.  Field ;  nor  yet  to  any  one  of  the  three  named  by 
Senator  Morgan,  rather  preferring  of  them,  however,  Mr.  Hillhouse.  Gov 
ernor  Morgan  tells  me  he  has  mentioned  the  three  names  to  you,  to  wit : 
R.  M.  Blatchford,  Dudley  S.  Gregory,  and  Thomas  Hillhouse.  It  will 
really  oblige  me  if  you  will  make  choice  among  those  three,  or  any  other 
man  that  Senators  Morgan  and  Harris  will  be  satisfied  with,  and  send  me 
a  nomination  for  him.  ..." 

The  President  to  Mr.  Chase — again. 

"  WASHINGTON,  June  23,  IS64. 

" .  .  .  .  When  I  received  your  note  this  forenoon,  suggesting  a  conversa 
tion — a  verbal  conversation — in  relation  to  the  appointment  of  a  successor 
to  Mr.  Cisco,  I  hesitated,  because  the  difficulty  does  not,  in  the  main  part, 
lie  within  the  range  of  a  conversation  between  you  and  me.  As  the  proverb 
goes,  *  No  man  knows  so  well  where  the  shoe  pinches  as  he  who  wears  it.1 
I  do  not  think  Mr.  Field  a  very  proper  man  for  the  place ;  but  I  would 
trust  your  judgment,  and  forego  this,  were  the  greater  difficulty  out  of  the 
way.  Much  as  I  personally  like  Mr.  Barney,  it;  has  been  a  great  burden  to 
me  to  retain  him  in  his  place,  when  nearly  all  our  friends  in  New  York 


508  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

were,  directly  or  indirectly,  urging  his  removal.  Then  the  appointment  of 
Hogeboom  to  be  General  Appraiser  brought  me  to,  and  has  ever  since  kept 
me  at,  the  verge  of  open  revolt.  Now,  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Field 
would  precipitate  it,  unless  Senator  Morgan,  and  those  feeling  as  he  does, 
could  be  brought  to  concur  in  it.  Strained  as  I  already  am  at  this  point, 
I  do  not  think  I  can  make  this  appointment  in  the  direction  of  still  greater 
strain. 

"The  testimonials  of  Mr.  Field,  with  your  accompanying  note, 
were  duly  received,  and  I  am  now  waiting  to  see  your  answer  from  Mr. 
Cisco.  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Cisco. 

"  WASHINGTON,  June  29,  1864. 

"  ....  I  am  very  grateful  for  your  telegram  and  letter.  It  relieves 
me  from  a  very  painful  embarrassment  and  from  serious  apprehensions. 
I  could  not  remain  here  and  see  your  office  made  parcel  of  the  machinery  of 
party,  or  even  feel  serious  apprehensions  that  it  might  be.  The  only  draw 
back  upon  my  satisfaction  comes  from  my  concern  for  your  health,  and 
from  my  anxiety  about  the  condition  of  public  affairs.  I  pray  God  that  no 
harm  may  come  to  you,  and  that  our  dear  country  may  soon  see  brighter 
days.  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  to  the  President. 

"  WASHINGTON,  June  29,  1SG4. 

" ....  I  have  received  your  note,  and  have  read  it  with  great  at 
tention.  I  was  not  aware  of  the  extent  of  the  embarrassment  to  which 
you  refer.  In  recommendations  for  office,  I  have  sincerely  sought  to  get 
the  best  men  for  the  places  to  be  filled  without  reference  to  any  other 
classification  than  supporters  and  opponents  of  your  Administration.  Of 
the  latter  I  have  recommended  none ;  among  the  former  I  have  desired  to 
know  no  distinction  except  degrees  of  fitness. 

"  The  withdrawal  of  Mr.  Cisco's  resignation,  which  I  inclose,  relieves 
the  present  difficulty ;  but  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  my  position  here  is 
not  altogether  agreeable  to  you ;  and  it  is  certainly  too  full  of  embarrass 
ment  and  difficulty  and  painful  responsibility,  to  allow  in  me  the  least 
desire  to  retain  it. 

"  I  think  it  my  duty,  therefore,  to  inclose  to  you  my  resignation.  I  shall 
regard  it  as  a  real  relief  if  you  think  proper  to  accept  it,  and  will  most 
cheerfully  render  to  my  successor  any  aid  he  may  find  useful  in  entering 
upon  his  duties.  ..." 

The  Resignation. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  29,  1S64. 

" ....  I  respectfully  resign  the  office  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
which  I  have  the  honor  to  hold  under  your  appointment.  ..." 


MR.   CHASE'S  RESIGNATION.  509 

The  President  to  Mr.  Chase. 

"  WASHINGTON,  June  29,  1864. 

" .  .  .  .  Your  resignation  of  the  office  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  sent 
me  yesterday,  is  accepted.  Of  all  I  have  said  in  commendation  of  your 
ability  and  fidelity,  I  have  nothing  to  unsay ;  and  yet  you  and  I  have 
reached  a  point  of  mutual  embarrassment  in  our  official  relations  which,  it 
seems  to  me,  cannot  be  overcome  or  longer  sustained  consistently  with  the 
public  service.  ..." 

Mr.  Cisco  to  Mr.  Chase. 

"NEW  YORK,  July  5,  1864. 

"  .  .  .  .  It  is  a  matter  of  deep  regret  to  me  that  my  resignation  should 
have  been  the  immediate  cause  of  a  result  so  unfortunate  to  the  country. 
I  was  amazed  at  the  determined  attempt  to  bring  my  office  into  the  politi 
cal  pool.  If  this  should  be  accomplished,  the  usefulness  of  the  office 
would  depart,  and  would  bring  in  its  fall  consequences  disastrous  to  the 
country. 

"  Since  I  entered  this  office  in  1853,  politics  have  been  carefully  ex 
cluded  from  the  administration  of  its  affairs,  and  appointments  have  been 
influenced  solely  by  considerations  of  loyalty,  integrity,  and  business  quali 
fications.  This  principle,  adopted  at  the  beginning  with  the  sanction  of 
three  administrations  of  the  Government,  has  been  faithfully  and  con 
scientiously  carried  out  down  to  the  present  time.  The  acknowledged 
success  of  the  office  is  attributable  more  to  this  principle  than  to  any  other 
cause,  and  the  man  who  attempts  to  administer  it  upon  the  view  that  he 
must  consult  party  interests  will  find  it  impracticable  and  the  result  a 
failure.  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Stanton,  Secretary  of  War. 

"WASHINGTON-,  June  30,  1864. 

" .  .  .  .1  felt  myself  bound  yesterday  to  send  my  resignation  to  the 
President.  It  would  have  been  grateful  to  me  to  be  able  to  consult  you ; 
but  I  feared  you  might  be  prompted  by  your  generous  sentiments  to  take 
some  step  injurious  to  the  country.  To-day  my  resignation  has  been  ac 
cepted  ;  and,  if  you  have  not  been  informed  of  it,  it  is  due  to  you  that  I 
should  give  you  the  information  as  soon  as  received  by  myself.  ..." 

Extract  from  Mr.  CJiase's  Diary,  June  30,  1864. 

"  Among  those  wfro  called  during  the  day  was  Mr.  Hooper,  who  related 
a  conversation  with  the  President  some  days  ago,  in  which  the  President 
expressed  regret  that  our  relations  were  not  more  free  from  embarrass 
ment,  saying  that  when  I  came  to  see  him  he  felt  awkward,  and  that  I 
seemed  constrained.  At  the  same  time  he  expressed  his  esteem  for  me, 
and  said  that  he  had  intended,  in  case  of  vacancy  in  the  chief-justiceship, 
to  tender  it  to  me,  and  would  now,  did  a  vacancy  exist.  This,  he  said,  he 
remarked  to  show  his  real  sentiments  toward  me  ;  for  he  remembered  that 


510  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

not  long  after  he  took  charge  of  the  Administration,  I  had  remarked  one 
day  that  I  preferred  judicial  to  administrative  office,  and  would  rather,  if 
I  could,  be  Chief- Justice  of  the  United  States  than  hold  any  other  position 
that  could  be  given  me.  Mr.  Hooper  said  he  thought  this  was  said  to 
him  in  order  to  be  repeated  to  me,  and  that  he  had  sought  an  opportunity 
of  doing  so,  but  had  not  found  one.  I  said  that  it  was  quite  possible,  had 
any  such  expressions  of  good-will  reached  me,  I  might,  before  the  present 
difficulty  arose,  have  gone  to  him  and  had  a  fresh  understanding,  which 
would  have  prevented  it ;  but  I  did  not  see  how  I  could  change  my  posi 
tion. 

"  Indeed,  if  such  were  the  real  feelings  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  he  would  hardly 
have  refused  a  personal  interview  when  I  asked  it,  or  required  me  to  con 
sult  local  politicians  in  the  choice  of  an  officer  whose  character  and  quali 
fications  were  so  vitally  important  to  the  department.  Besides,  I  did  not 
see  how  I  could  carry  on  the  department  without  more  means  than  Con 
gress  was  likely  to  supply,  and  amid  the  embarrassments  created  by  fac 
tious  hostility  within,  and  both  factious  and  party  hostility  without  the 
department." 

From  Mr.  Close's  Diary,  July  4,  1864. 

"  Mr.  Fessenden  came  in  (about  nine  p.  M.).  He  had  been  with  me  in 
the  morning,  and  told  me  he  had  received  a  letter.  .  .  .  recommending 
Governor  Morgan's  special  choice  for  a  successor  to  Mr.  Cisco.  He  ex 
pressed  his  intention  not  to  have  either  of  them ;  for  when  it  was  sought 
to  make  me  choose  appointments  he  had  told  me  that  he  should  call  on 
the  President,  and  before  acceptance  have  it  distinctly  understood  that  the 
appointment  of  subordinates  in  his  office,  for  whom  he  was  to  be  responsible, 
must  be  made  directly  on  his  own  nomination.  He  now  came  in  to  say 
that  the  President  had  at  once  acceded  to  this,  only  requiring  that, 
should  he  himself  desire  any  particular  appointment  made,  his  wishes  in 
that  regard  should  be  fully  considered.  He  said,  too,  that  he  hoped  Mr. 
Fessenden  would  not,  without  a  real  necessity,  remove  any  friends  of 
Governor  Chase." 

From  Mr.  Chased  Journal,  July  13,  1864. 

"  Half  of  my  fifty-seventh  year  is  ended.  To-day  I  leave  Washington 
a  private  citizen.  Saw  Stanton  before  leaving ;  he  was  warm  and  cordial 
as  ever.  No  other  head  of  a  department  has  called." 

!Mr.  Chase  went  to  New  England  and  spent  some  weeks,  and 
then  back  to  Washington,  and  from  Washington  to  the  "West ; 
taking  an  active  part  in  the  presidential  canvass,  and  supporting 
the  reelection  of  Mr.  Lincoln  with  great  earnestness  and  ability. 
He  made  speeches  at  several  places ;  notably  at  Cincinnati. 

In  his  journal  for  the  18th  of  August — being  then  in  Boston— he  made 


EXTRACTS  FROM  JOURNAL.  511 

this  entry :  "  Fessenden  was  with  me  and  expressed  his  astonishment  at 
the  immense  work  of  organization  I  had  accomplished  in  the  Treasury 
Department."  The  journal  during  this  period,  shows  that  there  was  some 
effort  at  procuring  his  restoration  to  the  Treasury;  without  his  concur 
rence,  however.  He  got  back  to  AYashington  on  the  14th  of  September ; 
saw  the  President  twice  while  there,  and  made  record  thus/  u  Septem 
ber  17th.  I  have  seen  the  President  twice  since  I  have  been  here.  Both 
times  third  persons  were  present,  and  there  was  nothing  like  private 
conversation.  His  manner  was  cordial  and  so  were  his  words ;  and  I  hear 
of  nothing  but  good-will  from  him.  But  he  is  not  at  all  demonstrative, 
either  in  speech  or  manner.  I  feel  that  I  do  not  know  him,  and  I  found 
no  action  on  what  he  says  or  does.  .  .  Sit  is  my  conviction  that  the  cause 
I  love  and  the  general  interests  of  the  country  will  be  best  promoted  by 
his  reelection,  and  I  have  resolved  to  join  my  efforts  to  those  of  almost  the 
whole  body  of  my  friends  in  securing  it  * ,  .  .  I  have  been  told  that  the 
President  said  he  and  I  could  not  get  along  together  in  the  Cabinet. 
Doubtless  there  was  a  difference  of  temperament,  and  on  some  points,  of 
judgment.  I  may  have  been  too  earnest  and  eager,  while  I  thought  him 
not  earnest  enough  and  too  slow.  On  some  occasions,  indeed,  I  found 
that  it  was  so.  But  I  never  desired  any  thing  else  than  his  complete  suc 
cess,  and  never  indulged  a  personal  feeling  incompatible  with  absolute 
fidelity  to  his  Administration.  To  assure  that  success  I  labored  incessantly 
in  the  Treasury  Department,  with  what  results  the  world  knows.  When  I 
found  that  the  use  of  my  name  in  connection  with  the  presidency  would 
interfere  with  my  usefulness  in  that  department,  I  seized  the  opportunity 
offered  by  the  expression,  by  a  majority  of  the  Union  members  of  the  Leg 
islature,  of  a  preference  for  Mr.  Lincoln,  to  ask  that  no  further  consideration 
should  be  given  to  my  name.  /  After  that,  I  advised  all  friends  who  con 
sulted  me,  in  reference  to  the  4ction  of  the  Baltimore  Convention,  to  give 
him  their  support.  But  it  would  be  uncandid  not  to  say  that  I  felt  wronged 
and  hurt  by  the  circumstances  which  preceded  and  attended  my  resigna 
tion,  and  that  I  was  far  from  satisfied  with  the  indications  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
sympathized  more  with  those  who  assailed  and  disparaged  than  with  those 
who  asserted  and  maintained  the  views  held  by  me  in  common  with  the 
great  majority  of  the  supporters  of  his  Administration.  I  think  even  now 
there  wojuld  never  have  been  any  difficulty  about  our  getting  along  to- 

/ 

I   l  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Schuckers  from  Narragansett,  September  6th3  Mr.  Chase 

eaid :  "  There  is  little  democracy  in  the  party  which  assumes  that  name,  but  much 
hatred  of  the  humblest  of  God's  poor — the  colored  race — and  much  subserviency  to 
the  slaveholding  class ;  while  in  the  Union  party,  with  a  great  deal  that  is  far  from  any 
tolerable  standard  of  either  ethics  or  politics,  there  is  a  great  deal  also  of  genuine  de 
votion  to  human  rights  and  noble  policy.  So  you  see  I  tend  to  the  point  of  burying 
all  complaints,  whether  of  injustice  to  myself — which  is  of  little  account — or  of  de 
linquencies  in  respect  to  the  country  and  to  patriotic  men,  especially  loyalists  of  the 
insurrectionary  States,  and  supporting  the  choice  of  the  Baltimore  Convention, 
awaiting  future  events  as  the  guide  for  future  action."  / 


512  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

gether,  could  he  have  understood  my  sentiments  just  as  they  were,  and  if 
he  had  allowed  me  to  understand  his  freely  and  unreservedly.  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  received  news  of  the  death  of  Chief-Justice  Taney  at  Cincin 
nati,  and  a  few  days  later,  a  letter  from  Mr.  Sumner,  dated  October  14th, 
in  which  Mr.  Sumner  said :  "  MY  DEAR  CHASE  :  I  have  written  to  the  Presi 
dent  without  delay,  and  urged  anew  the  considerations  to  which  he 
yielded  last  spring,  in  favor  of  your  nomination  as  Chief- Justice.  Of 
course  you  will  accept.  Yes !  accept,  and  complete  our  great  reformation 
by  purifying  the  Constitution,  and  upholding  those  measures  by  which  the 
republic  will  be  saved.  God  bless  you !  Ever  yours,  CHARLES  SUMNER." 
In  reply  to  this^Mr.  Chase  on  the  19th  of  October  wrote  from  Cincinnati : 
"  MY  DEAR  SUMNER  :  /  Your  action  is  like  you,  generous,  earnest,  and 
prompt.  Whatever  the  action  of  the  President  may  be,  yours  will  remain 
a  new  and  grateful  bond  of  endearment  of  you  to  me.  As  yet  I  have 
heard  nothing  from  Washington  of  a  definite  character,  or  from  author 
ized  sources.  But  what  I  do  hear  leads  me  to  think  that  the  President 
remains  of  the  same  mind  expressed  to  you  last  spring,  and,  as  I  have 
heard,  to  others  quite  recently.  ...  It  is  perhaps  not  exactly  e?i  regie  to 
say  what  a  man  will  do  in  regard  to  an  appointment  not  tendered  to  him  ; 
but  it  is  certainly  not  wrong  to  say  to  you  that  I  should  accept.  I  feel  that 
I  can  do  more  for  our  cause  and  country  in  that  place  than  in  any  other. 
.  ./.  It  is  now  certain  that  Mr.  Lincoln  will  be  reflected.  May  his  name  go 
down  to  posterity  with  the  two  noblest  additions  historians  ever  recorded 
— Restorer  and  Liberator !/ Faithfully  your  friend,  S.  P.  CHASE."  On  the 
20th  of 'October,  Mr.  Fessenden  wrote  to  Mr.  Chase:  "  MY  DEAR  SIR— I 
think  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  your  appointment  to  the  chief-justice 
ship.  The  President  said  to  me  of  his  own  motion,  '  I  have  not  forgotten 
our  conversation,'  but  as  things*  were  going  on  well,  he  thought  it  best  not 
to  make  any  appointment  or  say  any  thing  about  it  until  the  election  was 
over.  Your  friends  need  give  themselves  no  anxiety,  whatever  may  be 
said  by  the  papers.  I  believe  all  is  right. — Yours  always,  W.  P.  F."  On 
the  18th  of  November,  Mr.  Fessenden  wrote  again:  "I  congratulate  you 
on  getting  through  the  campaign  so  well,  winning  so  many  golden  opin 
ions.  I  have  no  doubt  you  will  be  Chief-Justice,  and  consider  the  matter 
so  well  settled  that  no  struggle  will  be  made  to  prevent  it.  I  have  neither 
seen  nor  heard  any  thing  to  indicate  a  change  of  intention.  .  ,  .  I  wish 
you  were  here  to  advise  me.  It  is  a  slow  and  troublesome  business  to  get 
any  reliable  statements.  But  for  Harrington,  it  would  be  next  to  impossi 
ble  to  get  any  thing  done  correctly.  Yours  always,  W.  P.  FESSENDEN." 
On  the  19th  of  November,  Mr.  Stanton  wrote  to  Chase :  "  MY  DEAR  FRIEND 
— Your  welcome  note  found  me  in  bed,  where  I  had  been  for  some  days. 
It  came  with  healing  on  its  wings,  for  I  was  in  that  condition  that  noth 
ing  could  serve  me  better  than  the  voice  of  a  friend  ;  and  no  friend  more 
effectually  than  you.  I  am  better  now  and  again  at  work,  but  with  feeble 
and  broken  health,  that  can  only  be  restored  by  absolute  rest  from  all 


NOMINATED  TO  BE  CHIEF-JUSTICE.  513 

labor  and  care.  This  I  long  for,  and  hope  soon  to  have. — Our  cause  is  now, 
I  hope,  beyond  all  danger,  and  when  Grant  goes  into  Richmond  my  task 
is  ended.  To  you  and  others  it  will  remain  to  secure  the  fruits  of  victory, 
and  see  that  they  do  not  turn  to  ashes. — In  respect  to  affairs  here,  nothing 
of  any  consequence  is  on  foot.  Your  experience  has  taught  you  that  the 
newspaper  reports  are  all  lies,  invented  by  knaves  for  fools  to  feed  on. 
This  is  especially  true  in  respect  to  Cabinet  changes  and  the  chief-justice 
ship.  Changes  in  the  Cabinet  will  of  course  take  place,  but  they  will  be 
made  in  time  and  manner  that  no  one  will  be  looking  for.  In  regard  to 
the  chief-justiceship,  I  learn  from  outside  sources  that  Swayne  is  the 
most  active  and  Blair  the  most  confident  of  the  candidates.  My  belief  is 
that  you  will  be  offered  the  appointment,  if  it  has  not  already  been  done. 
.  .  .  Yours  truly,  EDWIN  M.  STANTON." 

The  Nomination. 

•    "  EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  WASHINGTON,  December  6,  1864. 
To  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  : 

"  I  nominate  Salmon  P.  Chase,  of  Ohio,  to  be  Chief-Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  vice  Roger  B.  Taney,  deceased. 

"  ABKAHAM  LINC.OLN." 

THE  ACTION  OF   THE   SENATE. 

The  Senate  at  once,  and  without  a  reference,  unanimously 
confirmed  the  nomination. 

Mr.  Chase  to  the  President. 

"WASHINGTON,  December  6,  1864. 

"  ....  On  reaching  home  to-night  I  was  saluted  with  the  intelligence 
that  you  have  this  day  nominated  me  to  the  Senate  for  the  office  of  Chief- 
Justice. 

"  Before  I  sleep  I  must  thank  you  for  this  mark  of  your  confidence, 
and  especially  for  the  manner  in  which  the  nomination  was  made.  I  will 
never  forget  either,  and  trust  you  will  never  regret  either.  Be  assured 
that  I  prize-  your  confidence  and  good- will  more  than  nomination  to 
office.  ..." 

33 


CHAPTEK  XLYII. 

MR.   CHASE    AND   THE   WAR — RECONSTRUCTION    AND  RESTORATION. 

To  Rev.  J.  M.  Reid,  Cincinnati. 

"WASHINGTON,  January  23,  1865. 

*'....  npHE  question  of  the  reconstitution  of  the  rebel  States  as  mem- 
JL  bers  of  the  Union,  is  immediately  upon  us.  Citizens  of  Louis 
iana  and  Arkansas  are  asking  the  readmission  of  their  States  under  constitu 
tions  which  deny  to  the  masses  of  the  loyal  people  in  each  the  right  of 
suffrage.  It  seems  to  me  that  it  would  hardly  be  a  greater  crime  to  con 
tinue  slavery  itself  than  to  leave  the  only  class  which,  as  a  class,  has  been 
loyal,  unprotected  by  the  ballot.  Many  of  them  have  taken  up  arms  for 
the  country ;  many  of  them  have  lost  sons  and  brothers  fighting  for  the 
cause ;  and  now  it  is  proposed  to  confine  the  right  of  suffrage  to  the  whites, 
which  will  enable  them  to  make  all  sorts  of  invidious  and  unjust  discrimi 
nations  ;  nor  will  they  be  slow  to  do  so.  This  may,  and  I  fear  will,  pro 
duce  a  worse  convulsion  than  that  through  which  we  are  now  passing ; 
for  God  will  hardly  allow  so  great  an  injustice  to  go  unpunished.  ..." 

To  John  BigeloW)  V.  S.  Minister  at  Paris. 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  18, 1S65. 

"  The  rebellion  seems  to  be  near  its  end.  I  do  not  forget  that  I  thought 
so  before,  when  McClellan  was  marching  upon  Richmond,  and  when  Grant 
last  spring  began  his  advance.  But  the  evidence  is  much  clearer  and 
stronger  now.  Indeed,  it  looks  to  me  as  if  the  gradual  closing  of  the 
Union  armies  around  Lee  must  soon  compel  his  surrender.  .1  should 
hardly  be  surprised  to  see  it  come  without  a  battle.  What  a  crown  that 
would  be  of  Grant's  career  !  .  .  . " 

To  ike  President. 

"  BALTIMOEK,  April  11,  1865. 

"  When  all  mankind  are  congratulating  you,  one  voice,  heard  or  not,  ia 
of  little  account ;  but  I  add  mine. 


PRINCIPLES  OF  RECONSTRUCTION.  515 

"  I  am  very  anxious  about  the  future ;  and  most  about  the  principles 
which  are  to  govern  reconstruction ;  for  as  these  principles  are  sound  or  un 
sound,  so  will  be  the  work  and  its  results. 

"  You  have  no  time  to  read  a  long  letter,  nor  have  I  time  to  write  one ; 
so  I  will  be  brief. 

"  And  first  as  to  Virginia. 

"  By  the  action  of  every  branch  of  the  Government  we  are  committed 
to  the  recognition  and  maintenance  of  the  State  organization  of  which 
Governor  Pierpont  is  the  head.  You  know  all  the  facts,  recapitulation 
would  be  useless.  There  will  be  a  pressure  for  the  recognition  of  the  rebel 
organization  on  condition  of  profession  of  loyalty.  It  will  be  far  easier 
and  wiser,  in  my  judgment,  to  stand  by  the  loyal  organization  already 
recognized. 

"  And  next  as  to  the  other  rebel  States. 

"  The  easiest  and  safest  way  seems  to  me  to  be  the  enrollment  of  the 
loyal  citizens  without  regard  to  complexion,  and  encouragement  and  sup 
port  to  them  in  the  reorganization  of  State  governments  under  constitu 
tions  securing  suffrage  to  all  citizens  of  proper  age  and  unconvicted  of 
crime.  This,  you  know,  has  long  been  my  opinion.  It  is  confirmed  by 
observation  more  and  more. 

"  This  way  is  recommended  by  its  simplicity,  facility,  and,  above  all, 
justice.  It  will  be  hereafter  counted  equally  a  crime  and  a  folly  if  the 
colored  loyalists  of  the  rebel  States  are  left  to  the  control  of  restored 
rebels,  not  likely,  in  that  case,  to  be  either  wise  or  just,  until  taught  both 
wisdom  and  justice  by  new  calamities. 

"  The  application  of  this  principle  to  Louisiana  is  made  somewhat 
difficult  by  the  organization  which  has  already  taken  place  ;  but,  happily, 
the  Constitution  authorizes  the  Legislature  to  extend  the  right  of  suffrage ; 
and  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that,  on  a  suggestion  from  the  national  author 
ities,  that  its  extension  to  colored  citizens,  on  equal  terms  with  white  citi 
zens,  is  believed  to  be  essential  to  the  future  tranquillity  of  the  country  as 
well  as  just  in  itself,  the  Legislature  will  promptly  act  in  the  desired  direc 
tion. 

"  What  reaches  me  of  the  condition  of  things  in  Louisiana  impresses 
me  strongly  with  the  belief  that  this  extension  will  be  of  the  greatest  bene 
fit  to  the  whole  population. 

"  The  same  result  can  be  secured  in  Arkansas  by  an  amendment  of  the 
State  constitution,  or,  what  would  be  better,  I  think,  by  a  new  convention, 
the  members  of  which  should  be  elected  by  the  loyal  citizens,  without  dis 
tinction  of  color.  To  all  the  other  States,  the  general  principle  may  be 
easily  applied. 

"I  most  respectfully  but  most  earnestly  commend  these  matters  to  your 
attention,  God  gives  you  a  great  place  and  a  great  opportunity.  May  He 
guide  you  in  the  use  of  them  ! 

"  I  noticed  this  morning  your  proclamation  closing  the  ports,  and  was 


516  LITE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

glad  to  see  it.    I  presume  the  law  of  forfeiture  was  well  considered,  and 
also  the  effect  of  discrimination  against  foreign  vessels.  ..." 

To  the  President — again. 

"BALTIMOEE,  April  12, 1865. 

".  .  .  .  The  American  of  this  morning  contains  your  speech  of  last 
evening.  Seeing  that  you  say  something  on  the  subject  of  my  letter  to 
you  yesterday — reconstruction — and  refer,  though  without  naming  me,  to 
the  suggestions  I  made  in  relation  to  the  amnesty  proclamation,  when  you 
brought  it  before  the  heads  of  departments,  I  will  add  some  observations 
to  what  I  have  already  written. 

"  I  recollect  the  suggestions  you  mention ;  my  impression  is  that  they 
were  in  writing.  There  was  another  which  you  do  not  mention,  and 
which  I  think  was  not  in  writing.  It  is  distinct  in  my  memory,  though 
doubtless  forgotten  by  you.  It  was  an  objection  to  the  restriction  of  par 
ticipation  in  reorganization  to  persons  having  the  qualification  of  voters 
under  the  laws  in  force  just  before  rebellion^  Ever  since  questions  of  re 
construction  have  been  talked  about,  it  has  been  my  opinion  that  colored 
loyalists  ought  to  be  allowed  to  participate  in  it ;  and  it  was  because  of 
this  opinion  that  I  was  anxious  to  have  this  question  left  open.  I  did  not 
however,  say  much  about  the  restriction.  I  was  the  only  one  who  ex 
pressed  a  wish  for  its  omission,  and  did  not  desire  to  seem  pertinacious. 

"  You  will  remember,  doubtless,  that  the  first  order  ever  issued  for  en 
rollment,  with  a  view  to  reconstruction,  went  to  General  Shepley,  and  di 
rected  the  enrollment  of  all  loyal  citizens ;  and  I  suppose  that  since  the 
opinion  of  Attorney-General  Bates,  no  one  connected  with  your  Adminis 
tration  has  questioned  the  citizenship  of  free  colored  men,  more  than  that 
of  free  white  men.  The  restriction  in  the  amnesty  proclamation  operated 
as  a  revocation  of  the  order  to  General  Shepley ;  but  as  I  understood  you 
not  to  be  wedded  to  any  particular  plan  of  reconstruction,  I  hoped  that 
reflection  and  observation  would  satisfy  you  that  the  restriction  should 
not  be  adhered  to. 

"  I  fully  sympathized  with  your  desire  for  the  restoration  of  the  Union 
by  the  change  of  rebel  slave  States  into  Union  free  States,  and  was  will 
ing,  if  I  could  not  get  exactly  the  plan  I  thought  best,  to  take  the  plan  you 
thought  best  and  trust  to  the  future  for  modifications.  I  welcomed,  there 
fore,  with  joy,  the  prospect  of  good  results  from  cooperation  of  General 
Banks  with  the  free  State  men  of  Louisiana.  I  think  General  Banks's 
error,  and  I  have  said  so  to  him,  was  in  not  acting  through  instead  of  over 
the  Free  State  Committee.  This  committee  had  already  shown  itself  dis 
posed  to  a  degree  of  liberality  toward  the  colored  people  quite  remarkable 
at  that  time.  They  had  admitted  delegates  from  the  Creole  colored  popu 
lation  into  their  Free  State  Convention,  and  evinced  a  readiness  to  admit 
intelligent  colored  citizens  of  that  class  to  the  right  of  suffrage.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  great  and  satisfactory  progress  would  have  been  made  in  the 


CONCERNING  RECONSTRUCTION.  517 

same  direction,  had  not  the  work  been  taken  out  of  their  hands.  An  im 
pression  was  created  that  the  advocates  of  general  suffrage  were  to  be 
treated  with  disfavor  by  the  representatives  of  the  Government,  and  dis 
couragement  and  discontent  were  the  natural  consequences. 

"  For  one  I  was  glad  for  all  the  good  that  was  done ;  and  naturally 
wanted  more.  So  when  I  came  to  Washington  last  winter,  I  saw  General 
Banks ;  and  being  more  deeply  than  ever  persuaded  of  the  necessity  of 
universal  suffrage,  begged  him  to  write  himself,  and  to  induce  the  Sena 
tors  and  Representatives  elect  from  Louisiana  to  write  to  members  of  the 
Legislature,  and  urge  them  to  exercise  their  power  under  the  constitution, 
by  passing  an  act  extending  suffrage  to  colored  citizens.  I  knew  that  many 
of  our  best  men  in  and  out  of  Congress,  had  become  convinced  of  the  im 
policy  and  injustice  of  allowing  Representatives  to  States  which  had  been 
in  rebellion,  and  were  not  yet  prepared  to  concede  political  rights  to 
all  loyal  citizens.  They  felt  that  if  such  representation  should  be  allowed, 
and  such  States  reinstated  in  all  their  former  rights  as  loyal  mem 
bers  of  the  Union,  the  colored  loyalists  of  the  States  restored  would  be 
practically  abandoned  to  the  disposition  of  the  white  population,  with 
every  probability  against  them ;  and  they  feel  that  this  was  equally 
unjust  and  dangerous.  I  shared  these  sentiments,  and  was  therefore 
extremely  desirous  that  General  Banks  should  take  the  action  I  urged 
upon  him. 

"  I  thought,  indeed,  that  he  concurred  mainly  in  my  views,  and  would, 
to  some  extent  at  least,  act  upon  them.  I  must  have  been  mistaken ;  for  I 
never  heard  that  he  did  any  thing  in  that  direction. 

"  I  know  you  attach  much  importance  to  the  admission  of  Louisiana,  or 
rather  to  her  right  to  representation  in  Congress,  as  a  loyal  State  in  the 
Union.  If  I  am  not  misinformed,  there  is  nothing  in  the  way  except  the 
indisposition  of  her  Legislature  to  give  proof  satisfactory  of  loyalty  by  a  suf 
ficient  guarantee  of  safety  tind  justice  to  colored  citizens,  through  the  ex 
tension  to  loyal  colored  men  of  the  right  of  suffrage.  Why  not  then,  as 
almost  every  loyal  man  concurs  with  you  as  to  the  desirableness  of  that 
recognition,  take  the  shortest  road  to  it,  by  causing  every  proper  represen 
tation  to  be  made  to  the  Louisiana  Legislature,  of  the  importance  of  such 
extension  ? 

"  I  most  earnestly  wish  you  could  have  read  the  New  Orleans  papers 
for  the  past  few  months.  Your  duties  have  not  allowed  it.  I  have  read 
them  a  good  deal,  quite  enough  to  be  certain  that  if  you  had  read  what  I 
have,  your  feelings  of  humanity  and  justice  would  not  let  you  rest  till  all 
loyalists  are  made  equal  in  the  right  of  self-protection  by  suffrage. 

"  Once  I  should  have  been,  if  not  satisfied,  partially,  at  least,  contented 
with  suffrage  for  the  intelligent  and  for  those  who  have  been  soldiers ;  now 
I  am  convinced  that  universal  suffrage  is  demanded  by  sound  policy  and 
impartial  justice.  I  have  written  too  much  already,  and  will  not  trouble 
you  with  my  reasons  for  these  conclusions.  I  shall  return  to  Washington 


518  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

in  a  day  or  two,  and  perhaps  it  will  not  be  disagreeable  to  you  to  have  the 
whole  subject  talked  over.  ..." 


To  Stanley  Matthews,  Esq.,  Cincinnati. 

""WASHINGTON,  April  14,  1865. 

" .  .  .  .  We  all  feel  very  happy  here  in  the  prospect  of  the  speedy  re 
turn  of  peace.  I  hear  of  no  rebel,  and  no  sympathizer  with  rebellion,  who 
does  not  consider  the  insurrection  as  effectually,  though  as  yet  only  virtu 
ally  quelled.  Judge  Campbell  told  the  President  at  Richmond  that  he 
had  expressed  this  opinion  to  Davis,  Benjamin,  and  Mallory,  just  before 
they  left  Richmond;  and  they  were  silent.  It  was  the  silence  of  de 
spair.  ..." 

From  Mr.  Chase's  Diary,  April  l&th,  Friday. 

"  At  home  morning ;  afternoon,  rode  out  with  Nettie,  intending  to  have 
myself  left  at  President's,  and  talk  with  him  about  universal  suffrage  in  re 
organization  ;  felt  reluctant  to  call  lest  my  talk  might  annoy  him,  and  do 
harm  rather  than  good ;  home  a  little  after  dark,  having  postponed  my  in 
tended  call.  Retired  to  bed  about  ten.  Some  time  after,  a  servant  came 
up  and  said  a  gentleman,  who  said  the  President  had  been  shot,  wished  to 
see  me.  I  directed  that  he  should  be  shown  into  my  room.  He  came  in 
(an  employ 6  in  the  Treasury  Department),  and  said  he  had  just  come  from 
the  theatre ;  that  the  President  had  been  shot  in  his  box  by  a  man  who 
leaped  from  the  stage  and  escaped  by  the  rear.  He  could  give  no  partic 
ulars  and  I  hoped  he  might  be  mistaken ;  but  soon  after  Mr.  Mellen,  Mr. 
Walker  (the  Fifth  Auditor)  and  Mr.  Plants,  came  in,  and  confirmed  what 
had  been  told  to  me ;  and  added  that  Secretary  Seward  had  also  been  as 
sassinated;  and  that  guards  were  being  placed  around  the  houses  of  all  the 
prominent  officials,  under  the  apprehension  that  the  plot  had  a  wide  range. 

"My  first  impulse  was  to  rise  immediately  and  go 'to  the  President, 
whom  I  could  not  yet  believe  to  have  been  fatally  wounded ;  but  reflect 
ing  that  I  could  not  possibly  be  of  any  service,  and  should  probably  be  in 
the  way  of  those  who  could,  I  resolved  to  wait  for  morning  and  further 
intelligence.  In  a  little  while  the  guard  came  (for  it  was  supposed  I  was 
one  of  the  destined  victims),  and  their  heavy  tramp,  tramp,  was  heard 
under  my  window  all  night.  Mr.  Mellen  slept  in  the  house.  It  was  a 
night  of  horrors." 

"April  15th,  Saturday. — Up  with  the  light.  A  heavy  rain  was  falling, 
and  the  sky  was  black.  Walked  up  with  Mr.  Mellen  to  Mr.  Seward's, 
crossing  the  street  on  which  is  Ford's  Theatre,  and,  opposite,  the  house  to 
which  the  President  had  been  conveyed.  Was  informed  that  the  Presi 
dent  was  already  dead.  Continued  on  to  Mr.  Seward's,  and  found  guards 
before  the  house  and  in  the  streets  denying  access;  but  the  officer  allowed 
me  and  Mr.  Mellen  to  pass. 


INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENT  JOHNSON.  519 

" .  .  .  .  Soon  after  leaving  Mr.  Seward's,  I  went  to  see  the  Vice-Presi 
dent,  and  found  him  at  his  hotel ;  calm  apparently,  but  very  grave.  Soon 
after  Secretary  McCulloch  and  Attorney-General  Speed  came  in ;  they  said 
they  were  on  their  way  to  my  house  to  ask  my  attendance  for  the  admin 
istration  of  the  oath  of  office  as  President  to  the  Vice-President.  Some 
conversation  followed  as  to  time  and  place,  and  it  was  agreed  it  should  be 
in  the  parlor  where  we  then  were,  and  at  ten  o'clock.  I  then  went  with 
the  Attorney-General  to  his  office  to  look  into  the  precedents  in  the  cases 
of  Vice-Presidents  Tyler  and  Fillinore,  and  to  examine  the  Constitution 
and  laws.  On  our  way  the  topic  of  conversation  was  the  late  President. 
Mr.  Speed  said  he  had  never  seen  him  in  better  spirits  than  on  yesterday. 
He  met  the  Cabinet  very  cheerfully,  and  talked  with  them  freely  on  the 
subject  of  reorganization.  *  He  never  seemed  so  near  our  views,'  said  Mr. 
Speed.  '  Before  the  meeting  of  the  Cabinet  he  had  showed  me  your  letter 
from  Baltimore.  At  the  meeting  he  said  he  thought  he  had  made  a  mis 
take  at  Richmond  in  sanctioning  the  assembling  of  the  Virginia  Legislature ; 
and  had  perhaps  been  too  fast  in  his  desire  for  early  reconstruction.' 
All  Mr.  Speed  said  deepened  my  sorrow  for  the  country.  After  examining 
the  precedents  and  the  Constitution,  we  returned  to  the  hotel,  where,  at  the 
entrance,  I  encountered  old  Mr.  Blair  and  his  son  Montgomery.  I  had  de 
termined  to  bury  all  resentments,  and  greeted  both  kindly.  We  entered 
the  room  together — the  parlor  of  the  hotel — where  were  assembled  some 
twelve  or  fourteen  gentlemen :  Mr.  McCulloch,  Mr.  Speed,  the  Messrs.  Blair, 
Mr.  Hale,  and  others.  I  repeated  the  oath,  which  the  Vice-President  re 
peated  after  me.  He  was  now  the  successor  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  said  to  him, 
'  May  God  guide,  support,  and  bless  you,  in  your  arduous  labors !'  The 
others  then  came  forward  and  extended  their  sad  congratulations." 

To  General  J.  M.  Ashley,  Toledo,  Ohio. 

"WASHINGTON,  April  16,  1865. 

" .  .  .  .  The  President  has  been  stricken  down  when  he  was  most  hon 
ored  and  best  beloved.  The  schemes  of  politicians  will  now  adjust  them 
selves  to  the  new  conditions.  I  want  no  part  in  them.  What  the  future 
may  have  in  store  for  us  no  man  can  foresee.  I  pray  for  strength  to  do  my 
duty,  whatever  it  may  be.  ...  " 

[Not  long  after  the  inauguration  of  President  Johnson,  Mr. 
Chase  determined  upon  a  visit  to  the  Southern  cities,  with  a  view 
to  learn  as  much  as  possible,  from  actual  observation,  of  the  true 
condition  of  the  country.  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Mr. 
McCulloch,  was  about  to  send  a  revenue  cutter  to  the  New 
Orleans  station,  and  on  board  of  her  a  special  agent,  charged  with 
the  duty  of  examining  the  agencies  and  carrying  into  effect  the 
directions  of  the  department  in  the  several  South  Atlantic  and 


520  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Gulf  ports.  He  tendered  the  use  of  this  vessel  to  the  Chief- Jus 
tice,  and  orders  were  issued  by  the  President,  and  the  Secreta 
ries  of  War  and  of  the  Navy,  to  the  officers  in  the  naval,  mili 
tary,  and  civil  service,  to  afford  him  all  the  facilities  that  their 
respective  duties  would  allow.  Mr.  Chase  was  accompanied  by 
his  daughter,  Miss  Janet  Ralston  Chase,  and  Whitelaw  Reid, 
Esq.  The  Special  Agent  of  the  Department,  in  charge  of  the 
vessel,  was  William  P.  Mellen,  Esq. 

It  was  under  these  circumstances  that  the  Chief- Justice  made 
his  Southern  journey.  He  took  great  pains  to  inform  himself  of 
the  condition  of  the  South,  and  from  time  to  time  communicated 
his  views  to  the  President.  One  of  his  letters  to  Mr.  Johnson 
will  be  found  below.  He  arrived  back  in  Washington,  about  the 
middle  of  August,  having  returned  via  the  Mississippi  River.] 

To  Major-  General  Sherman. 

BEATJFOBT  HARBOB,  N.  C.,       ) 
U.  S.  KEVENUE  STEAMED  WATANDA,  May  6, 1865.  ) 

" ....  I  have  been  thought  a  radical  in  principle,  and  have  never  dis 
claimed  the  name ;  but  I  have  tried  to  be  a  conservative  in  working ;  and 
have  always  got  along  without  breaking  things.  This  morning  I  met  at 
Beaufort,  Colonel ,  a  gentleman  of  sixty,  owner  of  a  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  slaves  before  the  war,  and  a  handsome  estate  in  lands.  He  has  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  it  is  best  to  restore  the  old  constitution  of  North  Caro 
lina,  under  which  oil  freemen  voted;  and  believes  that  the  Union  and 
Union  men  will  be  safer  with  blacks  voting  than  without.  I  met  others 
with  different  opinions,  but  none  manifested  any  such  feelings  as  would 
lead  me  to  expect  any  renewal  of  troubles  from  the  extension  of  suffrage  to 
all  loyal  citizens,  and  inviting  all  citizens  to  participate  in  reorganiza 
tion.  .  .  .  But  I  will  not  trouble  you  further  with  these  ideas.  Time  will 
try  all  opinions. 

"  Let  me,  however,  most  respectfully  but  very  earnestly  advise  against 
the  publication  of  the  General  Order  you  have  sent  me.  I  cannot  see  that 
any  good  will  come  from  it,  but  I  fear  some  evil.  My  knowledge  of 
the  internal  administration  of  the  War  Department  for  nearly  a  year 
past  has  been  only  that  which  all  may  gather  from  the  journals ;  and,  of 
course,  I  am  not  well  enough  informed  to  judge  of  the  motives  of  recent 
action.  I  cannot  believe,  however,  that  it  had  its  origin  in  any  bad  feeling 
toward  you,  so  far  as  the  President  and  Secretary  are  concerned.  Since 
my  conversation  with  you,  I  have  seen  more  clearly  the  motives  and  views 
which  governed  you.  I  presume  the  President  and  Secretary  do  so  also. 
They  will  become  more  and  more  definitely  informed  and  impressed.  Full 
justice  will  be  done  you  both  by  Government  and  people. 


SOUTHERN  IDEAS  ON  RECONSTRUCTION.  521 

"  I  earnestly  hope  you  will  let  reason  and  reflection  do  the  work  of 
your  vindication,  and  put  the  order  at  least  in  abeyance. 

"  Pardon  me  that  I  thus  express  opinions  on  a  matter  of  which  you  are 
so  much  the  better  judge.  Your  kindness  in  permitting  me  to  see  the 
order  seems  to  warrant  it. 

"  You  are  a  native  of  Ohio — a  State  which  received  me  by  adoption, 
and  has  honored  me  beyond  desert.  Your  honor  and  repute  are  therefore 
especially  dear  to  me.  Besides  this,  your  brother  was  one  of  my  most  able 
and  efficient  supporters  in  my  whole  difficult  financial  administration  ;  and 
my  gratitude  to  him  in  some  sort  extends  itself  to  you.  So  you  must 
excuse  my  solicitude,  not  forgetting  that  it  is  that  of  one  who  is  a  good 
deal  older  than  you  are,  and  has  had  a  very  large  experience,  if  not  so 
varied  as  your  own.  ..." 

To  the  President. 

"  CHABLESTON,  8.  C.,  May  12,  1865. 

" .  .  .  .1  wrote  you  briefly  from  Wilmington.  .  .  .  The  white  citi 
zens  may  be  divided  into  two  classes:  1.  The  old  conservatives  who 
opposed  secession,  and  are  now  about  as  much,  and  in  some  cases  even 
more,  opposed  to  letting  the  black  citizens  vote ;  these  would  like  to  see 
slavery  restored.  2.  The  acquiescents,  who  rather  prefer  the  old  order  of 
things,  and  would  rather  dislike  to  see  the  blacks  vote — but  want  peace, 
means  of  living,  and  revival  of  business  above  all  things,  and  will  take  any 
course  the  Government  may  desire.  This  is  the  largest  class.  3.  The  pro 
gressives — who  see  that  slavery  is  dead,  and  are  not  sorry ;  who  see,  too, 
that  the  blacks  made  free,  must  be  citizens,  and  being  citizens  must  be 
allowed  to  vote ;  and  who  seeing  these  things  have  made  up  their  minds 
to  conform  to  the  new  condition,  and  to  lead  in  it.  These  are  men  of 
sagacity  and  activity ;  but  they  are  few,  and  few  of  the  few  have  been  in 
conspicuous  positions.  In  the  end,  however,  they  will  control. 

"  One  of  the  best  specimens  of  the  first  class  I  met  in  Wilmington  was 

Mr.  M .     He  is  an  able  lawyer  ;  a  good  citizen ;  a  good  man,  thoroughly 

sincere  and  truly  upright ;  he  was  a  Whig  of  the  Clay  school ;  opposed 
secession  earnestly  ;  submitted  to  it  only  perforce.  I  promised  to  convey 
his  views  to  you,  and  will  as  well  as  I  can  ;  they  may  be  stated  thus  : 

"  (1.)  The  best  mode  of  reorganization  in  North  Carolina  is  to  reas 
semble  the  Legislature,  which  was  lately  in  session,  and  require  each 
member  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  United  States.  He  thinks 
nearly  every  member  would  take  the  oath,  and  that  this  would  be  the  sever 
est  humiliation  to  them,  and  the  most  impressive  lesson  to  others.  (2.)  The 
Courts,  Supreme,  Superior,  and  Quarter  Sessions,  should  be  immediately 
required  to  resume  their  respective  jurisdictions;  and  if  this  cannot  be 
done,  that  the  Courts  of  Quarter  Sessions,  composed  of  the  justices  of  the 
peace  of  each  county,  should  at  least  be  put  in  action.  (3.)  If  the  Adminis 
tration  has  decided  not  to  recognize  the  Legislature  elected  while  the  State 
was  in  rebellion,  then  that  the  white  loyal  citizens  should  be  enrolled  under 


522  MFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

orders  of  the  military  commander,  by  Justices  of  the  Quarter  Sessions 
selected  by  him,  or  when  loyal  justices  cannot  be  found  to  act,  by  other 
citizens ;  and  that  the  citizens  enrolled  should  be  invited  to  elect  a  con 
vention  to  revise  the  constitution,  and  provide  for  the  election  of  Governor 
and  Legislature,  for  the  election  or  appointment  of  judges,  and  for  doing 
such  other  things  as  may  be  necessary  to  restore  civil  government  and 
national  relations.  (4.)  That  unrestricted  trade,  except  in  arms  and  pow 
der,  within  the  State,  with  other  States,  and  with  foreign  nations,  should 
be  allowed. 

"  His  first  proposition  is,  of  course,  inadmissible.  I  think  the  second 
equally,  so,  except  as  to  the  Courts  of  Quarter  Sessions.  Perhaps  these 
might  be  well  authorized  to  resume  their  functions,  each  justice  taking  the 
oath,  but  until  complete  restoration,  their  acts  must  necessarily  be  subject 
to  military  supervision.  The  third  seems  right,  except  that  I  would  not 
restrict  suffrage  to  whites.  The  fourth  strikes  me  as  altogether  expedient 
and  just. 

"  Nothing  need  be  said  of  the  second  class  of  citizens — the  acquiescents ; 
except  that  its  existence  insures  the  success  of  any  policy,  right  and  just 
in  itself,  and  enforced  with  steady  vigor,  which  you  may  think  best  to 
adopt. 

"  The  fourth  class  includes  the  men  of  the  future.  I  met  some  in 
dividuals  of  it.  One  of  the  best  specimens  at  Wilmington  was  Colonel 
Baker,  who  was  in  the  rebel  service,  made  prisoner,  and  pardoned  by 
President  Lincoln.  He  seemed  to  comprehend  the  new  situation,  and  was 
ready  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  regeneration  of  North  Carolina,  on  the 
basis  of  universal  suffrage.  He  is  what  you  and  I  would  call  a  young  man, 
say  thirty-five — active,  ready,  intelligent,  ambitious,  and  of  popular  man 
ners.  Another  individual,  a  paroled  colonel  from  South  Carolina,  waa 
described  to  me  by  Mr.  Lowell,  connected  with  the  Treasury  Department, 
who  accompanied  me,  and  who  mixes  freely  with  the  people,  without 
being  known  to  be  of  our  party.  They  met  at  the  Palmetto  Hotel,  where 
few  of  the  Northern  men  go.  He  declared  himself  fully  satisfied  that  the 
Confederacy  was  gone  up,  and  said  that  slavery  was  gone  up  with  it,  and, 
for  his  part,  he  was  determined  not  to  be  behind  the  times. 

"  This  classification  will  give  you  with  tolerable  accuracy,  I  think,  the 
sentiments  of  the  several  classes  into  which  the  Southern  whites  may  be 
divided ;  and  will  probably  satisfy  you  that  there  is  no  course  open,  if  we 
wish  to  promote  most  efficiently  the  interests  of  all  classes,  except  to  give 
suffrage  to  all. 

"  At  Wilmington — besides  many  white  citizens — a  colored  deputation 
called  on  me.  It  was  composed  of  four  persons.  The  spokesman  was 
minister  of  the  First  Presbyterian  (colored)  Church  in  Philadelphia,  who 
came  to  that  place  some  time  ago — at  the  instance  of  some  benevolent 
association — to  look  into  the  condition  of  the  colored  people,  and  to  report 
upon  it.  Of  the  other  three,  one  was  a  carpenter  who,  many  years  ago, 


MATTERS  IN  FLORIDA.  523 

bought  himself,  his  wife,  and  two  children.  The  whole  family  was  con 
veyed  to  a  white  citizen,  whose  character  was  their  only  security  against 
actual  as  well  as  legal  slavery.  Another,  also  a  carpenter,  had  hired  his 
time,  and  had  all  the  wages  he  could  earn  over  the  hire  paid  to  his  master. 
The  third  was  a  barber,  who  had  also  bought  himself,  and  then,  like  a 
sensible  fellow,  married  a  free  woman,  and  had  himself  conveyed  to  her. 
They  wanted  my  advice  in  their  present  circumstances ;  were  anxious  to 
know  whether  or  not  they  were  to  be  allowed  to  vote,  and  whether  they 
would  be  maintained  in  the  possession  of  the  lands  they  had  hired.  I  gave 
them  the  best  advice  I  could ;  to  be  industrious,  economical,  orderly, 
respectful ;  proving  by  their  conduct  their  worthiness  to  be  free.  As  to 
the  right  of  voting,  I  said  that  I  could  not  tell  whether  they  would  have  it 
immediately  or  not ;  but  they  would  certainly  have  it  in  time,  if  they 
showed  themselves  fit  for  it.  I  said  that  I  would  give  it  at  once  if  I  had 
the  right  to  decide ;  but  the  decision  was  with  you,  and  you  would  decide 
according  to  your  own  judgment,  with  the  best  feelings  toward  all  men  of 
all  classes.  If  they  should  get  it  immediately  they  must  not  abuse  it ;  if 
they  should  not  they  must  be  patient.  As  to  the  lands,  I  said  that  I  did 
not  doubt  that  the  leases  already  made  for  this  year  would  be  maintained ; 
but  that  they  could  not  expect  to  own  the  lauds  without  paying  for  them ; 
they  must  work  hard  now ;  get  and  save  all  they  could,  and  await  the 
future  patiently.  They  were  well  satisfied  with  what  I  said,  and  I  hope  it 
will  meet  your  approval. 

"  I  could  write  a  great  deal  more,  but  it  would  do  no  good.  While  I 
am  observing,  you  are,  doubtless,  resolving  and  acting.  I  am  sure  you 
will  follow  out  the  great  principles  you  have  so  often  announced,  and  put 
the  weight  of  your  name  and  authority  on  the  side  of  justice  and  right. 
My  most  earnest  wishes  will  be  satisfied  if  you  make  your  Administration 
so  beneficent,  and  illustrious  by  great  acts,  that  the  people  will  be  as 
little  willing  to  spare  Andrew  Johnson  from  their  service  as  they  were  to 
spare  Andrew  Jackson.  And  it  will  be  an  exceedingly  great  pleasure  to 
me  if  I  can  in  any  way  promote  its  complete  success.  ..." 

To  Charles  Sumner. 

"  JACKSONVILLE,  FLORIDA,  May  20,  1865. 

"  .  .  .  .  Yesterday  I  administered  the  oath  of  office  to  Mr.  Adolph 
Mot,  the  first  mayor  of  the  city  of  Fernandina  elected  by  the  united  votes 
of  white  and  black  citizens.  Was  not  that  an  event  ? 

"  Some  time  ago  the  citizens  had  a  meeting,  and  the  question  whether 
the  colored  men  should  be  allowed  to  vote  was  much  discussed ;  finally 
the  liberals  carried  it.  The  election  for  mayor  was  held  soon  after,  and 
Mr.  Mot  was  elected  by  a  very  handsome  majority.  He  had  not  been 
sworn  in  when  we  stopped  there  yesterday,  and  I  was  asked  to  administer 
the  oath,  and  was  not  at  all  loath  to  do  so.  General  Gillmore — who  is 
visiting  the  military  posts  in  Florida  under  his  command,  and  whose  guest 


524  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

I  am — was  present,  as  were  also  several  others,  officials  and  citieens.  So 
Fernandina  has  a  mayor  elected  by  a  majority  of  all  the  loyal  citizens. 
If  all  such  elections  result  in  the  choice  of  such  men,1  the  South  will  rap 
idly  revive  under  universal  suffrage. 

"  I  was  much  gratified  by  what  I  saw  at  Fernandina.  The  place  is 
small  and  much  damaged  by  the  waste  of  war,  though  exempt  from 
conflagrations  and  bombardments.  Cultivation  is  resumed  to  the  full 
extent  of  the  working  force,  and  promises  to  be  very  productive.  Mr. 
Mot  is  introducing  the  vine,  having  already  planted  a  respectable  vine 
yard. 

"  The  schools  seem  to  be  doing  very  well.  General  Gillmore  and  I 
visited  two.  They  are  composed  of  scholars  of  all  ages  and  colors.  Many 
of  the  colored  soldiers  attend,  and  are  striving  very  diligently  after  knowl 
edge.  The  teachers  are  of  that  army  of  women  to  whom  the  country  owes 
more  than  it  can  ever  pay,  and  more  I  fear  than  it  ever  will  be  conscious 
of.  The  world  has  never  seen  such  self-denying  and  generous  zeal  for  the 
education  of  a  race  as  our  American  women  have  shown. 

"  Yulee  called  on  me  last  night,  having  come  in  the  day  before.  He  is 
very  anxious  about  reconstruction ;  thinks  that  the  whites,  without  any 
distinctions  not  made  by  the  old  State  constitution,  should  be  intrusted 
with  the  work  ;  admits  that  personal  slaveholding  is  at  an  end,  but  wishes 
to  substitute  some  form  of  compulsory  labor,  and  insists  that  the  South 
will  be  Africanized  and  ruined  if  this  is  not  done.  General  Gillmore 
showed  him  the  order  published  this  week,  which  I  dare  say  you  will  have 
seen  before  this  letter  reaches  you.  The  order  declares  absolute  freedom 
for  all ;  hints  at  the  possibility  of  suffrage  for  all ;  advise  the  late  slaves 
masters  to  pay  fair  wages  and  the  blacks  to  work  for  fair  wages ;  and  ex 
pressly  forbids  all  attempts  at  reorganization,  through  the  ex-rebel  au 
thorities,  whether  executive  or  legislative.  The  perusal  of  it  rather  sad 
dened  Mr.  Yulee ;  as  he  had  been  commissioned  by  the  Governor  of 
Florida,  with  others,  to  proceed  to  Washington  and  confer  with  the  Presi 
dent  on  reorganization. 

"  The  boat  which  took  Jefferson  Davis  North  lay  alongside  of  ours, 
made  fast  by  lines,  for  some  time,  a  few  mornings  ago  between  Savannah 
and  Fort  Pulaski.  But  I  did  not  see  him.  I  did  not  wish  to,  unless  he 
asked  it ;  and  I  presume  he  was  not  informed  who  were  on  our  boat.  ..." 

To  Mrs.  Sprague,  at  Narragansett. 

"ON  THE  STEAMEE  W.  E.  CARTER,  NEAE  CAIBO,  ILLINOIS,  June  19,  1865. 
" ....  At  Memphis  we  got  the  papers  containing  President  Johnson's 
Mississippi  proclamation.    It  disappointed  me  greatly.    I  shall  be  glad  if 
it  does  not  do  a  great  deal  of  harm.     I  shall  stick  to  my  principles.   ..." 

1  Mr.  Mot  was  of  French  nativity,  and  was  an  old  personal  acquaintance  of  Mr 
Chase. 


PRINCIPLES  OF  RESTORATION.  525 

To  Mrs.  L.  B.  Seddon*  Richmond,  Virginia. 

"WASHINGTON,  October  20,  1865. 

"  .  .  .  .  Your  letter  did  not  reach  me  until  a  few  days  ago  on  my  return 
from  Ohio.  I  do  not  remember  saying  to  Mr.  Seddon,  when  we  parted, 
that  the  time  would  probably  come  when  I  might  be  useful  to  him,  but  I 
do  very  well  remember  the  parting  itself.  I  had  been  much  impressed  by 
his  frankness,  distinctness,  and  evident  sincerity.  His  opinions  were  the 
exact  reverse  of  mine  on  the  most  important  questions  before  us ;  but  I 
had  learned  to  respect  and  admire  noble  qualities  in  opponents  as  well  as 
in  friends.  I  thought  it  not  improper  to  express  to  him  something  of  the 
respect  and  esteem  I  could  not  help  feeling  when  I  took  leave  of  him  upon 
the  adjournment  of  the  convention. 

"  This  is  all  I  remember ;  and  certainly  what  I  said  implied  a  readiness 
to  serve  him  whenever  I  could  do  so  consistently  with  my  ideas  of  duty ; 
and  these  ideas  now,  far  from  prohibiting,  prompt  a  ready  compliance 
with  your  request. 

"  I  have  therefore  called  on  both  the  President  and  Secretary  of  War 
in  reference  to  the  release  of  Mr.  Seddon  on  his  parole,  and  am  happy  in 
being  able  to  say  to  you  that  I  think  no  insuperable  obstacle  exists.  ...  I 
have  every  reason  to  hope.  .  .  .  that  Mr.  Seddon's  discharge  on  parole 
may  be  expected  very  soon.  When  discharged,  I  cannot  doubt  that  his 
fine  powers  will  be  employed  in  reestablishing  union  and  order  on  the 
basis  of  equal  justice  for  all.  I  think  it  the  only  basis  upon  which  perma 
nent  tranquillity  and  prosperity  may  be  restored ;  and  I  most  earnestly 
pray  that  God  may  give  all  of  us  will  to  labor  with  one  heart  and  mind 
for  the  restoration  of  these  blessings  to  every  part  of  our  country.  ..." 

To  Lyman  Abbott,  J.  M.  McKim,  and  Ren.  George  WMpple. 

"  WASHINGTON,  November  20,  1865. 

" ....  To  suppress  the  rebellion  the  American  people  put  forth  vast 
energies,  counting  neither  treasure  nor  life  dear  in  comparison  -frith  an 
undivided  country. — And  never,  in  the  history  of  the  world,  was  a  civil 
war  waged  with  so  little  rancor  and  vindictiveness  on  the  part  of  the 
nation  against  rebels.  The  people  never  forgot  that  success  must  be  fol 
lowed  by  the  restoration,  in  due  time  and  on  just  conditions,  of  the  old 
relations  between  each  State  and  the  Union ;  and  that,  to  the  permanent 
and  beneficial  restoration  of  those  relations,  thereestablishment  of  fraternal 
sentiments  between  the  citizens  of  all  the  States  was  indispensable.  It  is 
important,  now,  that  the  people  who  have  been  in  rebellion,  shall  be 
thoroughly  satisfied  that  the  first  wish  of  the  loyal  people  is  the  reestab- 
lishment  of  these  sentiments. 

"  The  war  has  brought  great  changes.     Among  these  the  enfranchise- 

1  Mrs.  Seddon  was  the  wife  of  James  A.  Seddon,  member  of  the  "Peace  Confer 
ence  "  of  1861,  and  afterward  for  a  time  rebel  Secretary  of  War. 


526  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

ment  of  four  millions  of  slaves  is  the  greatest  and  most  momentous.  The 
conversion  of  this  vast  population  of  bondmen  into  free  men  and  citizens, 
imposes  on  the  people  of  the  States  in  which  this  wonderful  revolution 
has  taken  place,  on  the  people  of  the  other  States,  and  on  the  Government 
of  the  whole  country,  new  and  peculiar  duties.  It  is  important  that  these 
new  citizens  should  be  assured  that  these  duties  will  be  neither  evaded 
nor  neglected. 

"  How  best  to  assure  the  white  citizens  of  the  States  lately  in  rebellion, 
of  the  real  good-will  of  their  fellow-citizens  of  the  loyal  States,  and  of 
their  readiness  to  afford  active  aid,  where  aid  is  wanted,  in  relieving  the 
necessities  and  repairing  the  injuries  occasioned  by  the  war;  and  how 
best  to  assure  the  colored  citizens  of  those  States  of  the  country's  great 
appreciation  of  their  steady  devotion  to  the  national  authority,  and  of  its 
purpose  to  promote,  in  every  proper  way,  their  security  and  welfare,  will 
doubtless  engage  the  most  earnest  consideration  of  the  meeting. 

"It  is  a  welcome  and  significant  sign  of  good,  that  the  associations 
which  have  devoted  special  efforts  to  different  parts  of  the  work  of  resto 
ration  and  renovation,  seem  now  likely  to  unite  their  means  and  activities 
in  carrying  forward  the  whole  noble  labor.  The  practical  methods  of 
usefulness,  whether  in  promoting  true  religion  and  sound  education,  or  in 
relieving  actual  distress,  or  in  encouraging  industrial  enterprise — will  be 
best  considered,  selected,  and  put  in  use,  under  such  auspices.  I  cannot 
disguise  my  conviction  that  the  surest  and  shortest  road  to  permanent 
peace,  settled  order,  sound  credit,  contented  industry,  and  general  pros 
perity  in  every  State,  is  the  frank  recognition  of  the  right  of  every  citizen, 
white  or  colored,  to  protect  his  and  his  neighbor's  freedom  and  promote 
his  and  his  neighbor's  welfare  by  his  vote. 

"  But  I  shall  rejoice  in  seeing  good  done  and  in  promoting  the  doing 
of  it,  in  whatever  measure  or  kind,  and  by  whatever  agency  or  authority. 

"  We  made  war  to  save  the  Union.  The  providence  of  God  made  our 
war  for  the  Union  a  war  for  universal  freedom  in  America,  and  crowned 
it  with  success.  Now  comes  the  work  of  restoration  and  renovation. 
Let  it  be  prosecuted  with  wise  patriotism,  sincere  good-will,  and  impartial 
justice,  and  who  will  dare  doubt  that  God  will  crown  this  work  also  with 
success  ? " 

To  Associate- Justice  Stephen  J.  Field. 

u  WASHINGTON,  April  30,  1SGG. 

".  .  .  .  What  do  you  think  of  the  plan  of  reconstruction,  or  rather  of 
completing  reconstruction,  presented  by  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  ?  To  me 
it  seems  very  well,  provided  it  can  be  carried  out ;  but  I  am  afraid  that  it 
is,  as  people  say,  rather  too  big  a  contract.  So  far  as  I  have  had  opportu 
nity  of  conversing  with  Senators  and  Representatives,  I  have  recommended 
them  to  confine  constitutional  amendments  to  two  points :  (1.)  No  payment 
of  rebel  debt,  and  no  payment  for  slaves ;  and,  (2.)  No  representation  be 
yond  the  constituent  basis.  And,  as  so  many  were  trying  their  hands 


CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.  527 

at  form,  I  drew  up  these  two  amendments  according  to  my  ideas,  as 
follows : 1 

"  ARTICLE  14,  SECTION  1.  Representatives  shall  be  apportioned  among 
the  several  States,  according  to  their  respective  numbers ;  but  whenever 
in  any  State  the  elective  franchise  shall  be  denied  to  any  of  its  inhabitants 
being  male  citizens  of  the  United  States,  above  the  age  of  twenty-one  years, 
for  any  cause  except  insurrection  or  rebellion  against  the  United  States, 
the  basis  of  representation  in  such  State  shall  be  reduced  in  the  proportion 
which  the  number  of  male  citizens  so  excluded  shall  bear  to  the  whole 
number  of  male  citizens  over  twenty-one  years  of  age. 

"  SEC.  2.  No  payment  shall  ever  be  made  by  the  United  States  for,  or 
on  account  of,  any  debt  contracted  or  incurred  in  aid  of  insurrection  or  re 
bellion  against  the  United  States;  or  for  or  on  account  of  the  emancipation 
of  slaves. 

"  And  I  proposed,  further,  that  the  submission  of  this  article  to  the 
States  should  be  accompanied  by  a  concurrent  resolution  to  this  effect : 
'  That  whenever  any  of  the  States,  which  were  declared  to  be  in  insurrec 
tion  and  rebellion  by  the  proclamation  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  dated  July  1, 1862,  shall  have  ratified  the  foregoing  article,  Senators 
and  Representatives  from  such  ratifying  States  ought  to  be  admitted  to 
seats  in  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  respectively,  in  the  like 
manner  as  from  States  never  declared  to  be  in  inssrrection  and  rebellion ; 
and  that  whenever  the  said  article  shall  have  been  ratified  by  three-fourths 
of  the  several  States,  Senators  and  Representatives  ought  in  like  manner 
to  be  admitted  from  all  the  States. 

"  It  has  really  seemed  to  me  that  on  this  basis  the  completion  of  reor 
ganization  by  the  admission  of  members  in  both  Houses  of  Congress  would 
be  safe ;  and  I  have  greatly  doubted  the  expediency  of  going  beyond  this. 
In  two  or  three  important  respects  the  report  of  the  committee  does  go 
beyond  this  :  (1.)  Prohibiting  the  States  from  interfering  with  the  rights 
of  citizens ;  (2.)  Disfranchising  all  persons  voluntarily  engaged  in  rebellion 
till  1870 ;  and,  (3.)  In  granting  express  legislative  power  to  Congress  to 
enforce  all  new  constitutional  provisions.  Will  not  these  propositions  be 
received  with  some  alarm  by  those  who,  though  opponents  of  secession  or 
nullification,  yet  regard  the  real  rights  of  the  States  as  essential  to  the 
proper  working  of  our  complex  system  ?  I  do  not  myself  think  that  any 
of  the  proposed  amendments  will  be  likely  to  have  injurious  effects  unless 
it  be  the  sweep  of  the  disfranchisement ;  but,  I  repeat  that  I  fear  the  un 
dertaking  of  too  much ;  and  I  add  that  it  seems  to  me  that  nothing  is 
gained  sufficiently  important,  and  unattainable  by  legislation,  to  warrant 
our  friends  in  overloading  the  ship  with  amendment  freight. 

"  But  this  letter  is  too  long.    Pardon,  and  answer.  ..." 

1  If  the  reader  will  take  the  trouble  to  examine  the  fourteenth  amendment  to  the 
Constitution,  he  will  find  that  it  is  precisely  in  substance,  and  almost  in  words,  tho 
proposition  of  Mr.  Chase  as  stated  in  the  text. 


528  LIFE  OP  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

To  Henry  W.  Hilliard,  Esq.,  of  Georgia. 

"  WASHINGTON,  April  27,  1363. 

" .  .  .  .  Some  days  since  I  received,  from  an  unknown  hand,  a  paper 
containing  a  letter  of  yours,  which  I  read  with  great  interest. 

"  My  acquaintance  with  you  when  we  were  both  in  Congress — you  in 
the  House  and  I  in  the  Senate — was  very  slight ;  but,  slight  as  it  was,  I 
take  occasion  from  it  to  write  you  a  few  lines,  suggested  by  your  letter. 

"Ever  since  the  war  closed  I  have  been  very  anxious  for  the  earliest 
practicable  'restoration'  of  the  States  of  the  South  to  their  proper  relations 
to  the  other  States  of  the  Union.  I  adopt  your  own  statement  of  the  prob 
lem  to  be  worked  out,  because  I  agree  with  you  in  the  opinion  that  those 
1  States  have  never  been  other  than  States  within  the  Union  since  they  be 
came  parties  to  the  Federal  Government,  and  that  the  failure  to  maintain 
their  assertions  of  independence  in  the  conflict  of  arms  which  followed, 
left  them  States  still  within  the  Union.' 

"  The  point  on  which  I  probably  differ  from  you  is  this :  the  people  for 
whom  and  through  whom  these  States  were  to  be  organized  at  the  close 
of  the  war,  was  not,  as  I  think,  the  same  people  as  that  which  existed  in 
them  when  the  war  began. 

"In  my  judgment  the  refusal  of  the  proprietary  class,  if  it  may  be  so 
called,  to  recognize  this  fact  and  its  legitimate  and  indeed  logical  conse 
quences,  and  the  convictions  of  large  majorities  in  the  States  which  adhered 
to  the  national  Government  in  respect  to  it,  caused  most  of  the  trouble  of 
the  last  three  years. 

" I  have  not  time  to  go  at  large  into  this  subject;  but  I  may  say  brief 
ly,  that  emancipation  came  to  be  regarded  by  these  majorities  as  a  military 
necessity ;  that  the  faith  of  the  nation  was  pledged  by  the  proclamation  of 
emancipation  to  maintain  the  emancipated  people  in  the  possession  and 
enjoyment  of  the  freedom  it  conferred  ;  that  to  this  end  the  amendment  of 
the  Constitution  prohibiting  slavery  throughout  the  United  States  was- 
proposed  and  ratified ;  that,  becoming  freemen,  the  emancipated  people 
became  necessarily  citizens ;  and  that  as  citizens  they  were  entitled  to  be 
consulted  in  respect  to  reorganization,  and  to  the  means  of  self-protection  by 
suffrage.  This  is  a  very  brief,  but  I  think  a  perfectly  correct  statement  of 
what  maybe  called,  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  the  Northern  view  of  this  mat 
ter.  It  would,  perhaps,  be  more  correct  to  call  it  the  loyal  view  North 
and  South,  using  the  word  loyal  as  distinguishing  the  masses  who  support 
the  national  Government  from  the  masses  who  opposed  it  during  the  war. 

"Now  the  particular  matter  to  which  I  wish  to  draw  your  attention  is, 
whether  policy  and  duty  do  not  require  the  class  which  I  have  called  pro 
prietary,  meaning  thereby  the  educated  and  cultivated  men  of  the  South — 
whether  property-holders  or  not — to  accept  this  view  fully  and  act  upon  it. 

"Is  it  possible  to  doubt  that,  had  this  view  been  accepted  and  acted 
upon  three  years  ago,  after  the  surrender  of  Lee  and  Johnston,  the  Southern 
States  would  have  been  richer  to-day  by  hundreds  of  millions  than  they 


FRATERNAL  RESTORATION.  529 

are,  and  that  long  ago  universal  amnesty  and  the  removal  of  all  disabilities 
would  have  prepared  the  hearts  of  men  on  both  sides  for  a  real  Union? 
Can  it  be  a  matter  of  question  that  the  colored  voters,  finding  in  the  edu 
cated  classes  true  friendship,  evidenced  by  full  recognition  of  their  rights 
and  practical  acts  of  good-will,  would  have  gladly  given  to  those  classes 
substantially  their  old  lead  in  affairs,  directed  now,  however,  to  union  and 
not  to  disunion ;  to  the  benefit  of  all,  and  not  exclusively  to  the  benefit  of 
a  class  ? 

"  I  observe  that  you  say  that  the  attempt  to  carry  on  the  Government 
with  the  privilege  of  universal  suffrage  incorporated  as  one  of  its  elements 
is  full  of  danger.  Danger  is  the  condition  of  all  governments;  because  no 
form  of  government  insures  wise  and  beneficent  administration.  But  I  beg 
you  to  consider,  is  there  not  a  greater  danger  without  than  with  universal 
suffrage?  You  cannot  make  suffrage  less  than  universal  for  the  whites, 
and  will  not  the  attempt  to  discriminate  excite  such  jealousies  and  ill  feel 
ing  as  will  postpone  to  a  distant  future  what  seems  so  essential,  namely, 
the  restoration  of  general  good-will  and  bringing  into  lead  the  educated 
men  and  the  men  of  property,  and  so  securing  the  best  and  most  beneficial 
administration  of  affairs  for  all  classes?  Take  universal  suffrage  and  uni 
versal  amnesty,  and  all  will  be  well.  Can  you,  my  dear  sir,  devote  your 
fine  powers  to  a  better  work  than  complete  restoration  on  this  basis  ?  .  .  . " 


To  Captain  E.  B.  Manning,  Charleston,  S.  C. 

"  CHABLESTON,  8.  C.,  May  29,  1869. 

" .  .  .  .  Your  note  inviting  me  to  attend  the  ceremony  of  decorating  at 
Magnolia  Cemetery  the  graves  of  the  brave  men  who  fell  in  defense  of  the 
Union  during  the  recent  civil  war,  only  reached  me  this  morning. 

"I  am  very  sorry  that  I  cannot  be  with  you  on  this  most  interesting 
occasion  ;  but  it  is  now  too  late  to  make  the  necessary  arrangements. 

"  The  nation  cannot  too  tenderly  cherish  the  memory  of  her  dead  he- 
roes%  or  too  watchfully  guard  the  well-being  of  those  who  survive.  And 
may  we  not  indulge  the  hope  that  ere  long  we  who  adhered  to  the  national 
cause  will  be  prompt  also  to  join  in  commemorating  the  heroism  of  our 
countrymen  who  fell  on  the  other  side,  and  that  those  who  now  specially 
mourn  their  loss,  consenting  to  the  arbitrament  of  arms,  and  resuming  all 
their  old  love  for  their  country  and  our  country,  one  and  indivisible,  will 
join  with  us  in  like  commemoration  of  the  fallen  brave  of  the  army  of  the 
Union? 

<l  The  dead  are  not  dead.  They  have  only  gone  before,  and  now  see  eye 
to  eye.  Why  may  not  we  all  borrow  from  their  sacred  graves  oblivion  of 
past  differences  and  henceforth  unite  in  noble  and  generous  endeavor  to 
assure  the  honor  and  welfare  of  our  whole  country,  of  all  her  States  and 
of  all  her  citizens  ? " 
34 


530  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

To  John  E.  Williams,  Esq.,  New  York. 

"  EAUEIQD,  N.  C.,  June  10,  1S69. 

" ....  I  regret  that  the  perusal  of  my  letter  to  Captain  Manning  caused 
'  painful  dissatisfaction '  to  you ;  for  I  am  sure  that  you  are  patriotic  and 
not  intentionally  unjust. 

"  Doubtless  you  remember  occasions  when  your  active  hostility  to  meas 
ures  of  finance  which,  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  I  thought  indispensable 
to  the  success  of  the  national  arms,  caused  'painful  dissatisfaction'  to  me. 
The  present  name  of  the  institution  which  you  manage  with  so  much  abil 
ity  and  success,  shows  that  you  have  abandoned  your  opposition  to  one,  at 
least,  of  those  measures. 

"It  is  perhaps  not  impossible  that  you  will  change  your  mind  as  to  the 
sentiment  which  you  now  censure.  It  seems  to  me  that,  taken  in  connec 
tion  with  the  context,  from  which  your  quotation  separates  it,  its  sense 
cannot  be  mistaken.  It  is  that  true  patriotism  requires  that  the  close  of  a 
great  civil  war  should  be  marked  not  by  proscription  or  disfranchisement, 
but  by  manifestations  of  sincere  good-will,  especially  from  the  successful  to 
the  unsuccessful,  and,  by  generous  recognition  of  whatever  was  really  brave, 
and  earnest,  and  noble,  in  those  who  fought  on  the  failing  side. 

"  I  have  no  sympathy  with  the  spirit  which  refuses  to  strew  flowers  up 
on  the  graves  of  the  dead  soldiers  who  fought  against  the  side  I  took;  and 
I  am  glad  to  know  that  there  was  no  such  spirit  among  those  who  joined 
in  decorating  the  graves  of  the  soldiers  of  the  Union  who  lie  buried  in  Mag 
nolia  Cemetery. 

"  The  magnolia  lavishes  its  perfumes  as  freely,  the  pleasant  air  breathes 
as  softly,  and  the  warm  sun  shines  as  brightly  over  Confederate  as  over 
Union  graves. 

"In  the  letter  which  has  incurred  your  censure,  I  sought  to  put  into  the 
hearts  of  my  countrymen  something  of  the  divine  charity  taught  by  the  tree, 
the  air,  and  the  sun,  as  well  as  by  the  precepts  of  our  Saviour.  I  believe  it 
has  done  some  good,  and  I  hope  it  will  do  more. 

"  I  have  read  your  extract  from  the  speech  of  '  one  of  our  brave  Gen 
erals'  whom  you  do  not  name.  There  are  some  good  sentiments  in  it,  and 
some  not  so  good.  On  the  whole,  I  prefer  the  letter  to  the  speech,  and  I 
am  sorry  to  differ  from  you  so  far  as  to  think  that  of  the  two,  the  letter 
'is  most  becoming  the  position'  which  I  hold.  The  Chief- Justice  is,  I 
think,  not  illy  employed  when  he  inculcates  good- will  among  men. 

"I  notice*  that  you  more  than  intimate  that  my  letter  was  prompted  by 
ambition.  It  certainly  was  not.  I  do  not  think  that  I  ever  was  so  ambi 
tious  as  some  unambitious  people  have  represented  me.  At  any  rate,  I  am 
now  unconscious  of  any  other  ambition  than  that  of  doing  as  much  good 
and  as  little  harm  as  possible. 

"  I  have  no  connection  with  politics.  I  neither  seek  nor  expect  any  po 
litical  position.  Content  to  leave  to  younger  men  all  the  contentions  and 
distinctions  of  political  life,  I  shall  be  fully  satisfied  with  my  share  of  the 


REASSERTION  OF  OLD  PRINCIPLES.  531 

general  welfare  which,  it  may  be  hoped,  wise  and  generous  statesmanship, 
with  God's  blessing,  will  secure  for  our  country.  ..." 

To  Peter  H.  Clark,  T.  N.  C.  Liverpool,  J.  C.  Corbin,  and  J.  T.  Troy, 
Committee,  Cincinnati. 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  80,  1S70. 

" .  .  .  .  Accept  my  thanks  for  the  invitation  you  have  tendered  me,  in 
behalf  of  the  colored  people  of  Cincinnati,  to  attend  their  celebration  of 
the  ratification  of  the  fifteenth  amendment.  My  duties  here  will  not  per 
mit  me  to  be  present  except  by  good-will  and  good  wishes. 

"Almost  a  quarter  of  a  century  has  passed  since  some  of  you,  probably, 
heard  me  declare,  on  the  6th  of  May,  1845,  in  an  assembly  composed  chiefly 
of  the  people  whom  you  now  represent,  that  all  legal  distinctions  between 
individuals  of  the  same  community  founded  on  any  such  circumstances  as 
color,  origin,  and  the  like,  are  hostile  to  the  genius  of  our  institutions  and 
incompatible  with  the  true  theory  of  American  liberty ;  *  that  true  democ 
racy  makes  no  inquiry  about  the  color  of  the  skin,  or  the  place  of  nativity, 
or  any  other  similar  circumstance  of  condition;  and  that  the  exclusion  of 
the  colored  people  as  a  body  from  the  elective  franchise  is  incompatible 
with  true  democratic  principles. ' 

"  I  congratulate  you  on  the  fact  that  these  principles,  not  then  avowed 
by  me  for  the  first  time,  nor  ever  since  abandoned  or  compromised,  have 
been  at  length  incorporated  into  the  Constitution  and  made  part  of  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land. 

"  Many,  no  doubt,  would  have  been  glad,  as  I  should  have  been,  if  the 
great  work  consummated  by  the  ratification  of  the  fifteenth  amendment 
could  have  been  accomplished  by  the  States  through  amendment  of  State 
constitutions  and  through  appropriate  State  legislation ;  but  the  delays  and 
uncertainties,  prejudicial  to  every  interest,  inseparable  from  that  mode  of 
proceeding,  seemed  to  necessitate  the  course  actually  adopted.  Nor  does 
the  amendment  impair  the  real  rights  of  any  State.  It  leaves  the  whole 
regulation  of  suffrage  to  the  whole  people  of  each  State,  subject  only  to  the 
fundamental  law,  that  the  right  of  no  citizen  to  vote  shall  be  denied  or 
abridged  on  account  of  color,  race,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude.  It 
is  to  be  hoped  that  each  State  will  so  conform  its  constitution  and  laws  to 
this  fundamental  law  that  no  occasion  may  be  given  to  legislation  by  Con 
gress. 

"  But  the  best  vindication  of  the  wisdom  as  well  as  justice  of  the  amend 
ment  must  be  found  in  the  conduct  of  that  large  class  of  citizens  whom  you 
represent.  On  the  occasion  to  which  I  have  referred  I  ventured  to  say  that 
'  the  best  way  to  insure  the  peaceful  dwelling  together  of  the  different  races 
is  the  cordial  reciprocation  of  benefits,  not  the  mutual  infliction  of  injuries ; ' 
and  I  cannot  now  give  you  better  counsel  than  I  offered  then :  '  Go  for 
ward,  having  perfect  faith  in  your  own  manhood  and  in  God's  providence, 
adding  to  your  faith,  virtue  ;  and  to  virtue,  knowledge ;  and  to  knowledge, 


532  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

patience ;  and  to  patience,  temperance ;  and  to  temperance,  brotherly  kind 
ness;  and  to  brotherly  kindness,  charity. ' 

"Why  not  signalize  your  rejoicing  in  the  rights  secured  under  the  fif 
teenth  amendment  by  urging  upon  Congress  the  prompt  removal  of  all 
political  disabilities  imposed  upon  our  fellow-citizens  by  the  fourteenth 
amendment  ? — so  that,  through  universal  suffrage  and  universal  amnesty, 
peace,  good-will,  and  prosperity,  may  be  established  throughout  our  coun 
try. 

"  Every  good  man  must  rejoice  in  the  progress  which  the  colored  citizens 
of  the  United  States  have  made  in  education,  in  religious  culture,  and  in 
the  general  improvement  of  their  condition.  Every  good  man  must  ear 
nestly  desire  their  continued  and  accelerated  progress  in  the  same  direction. 
All  public  and  all  private  interests  will  be  promoted  by  it ;  and  it  will  in 
sure,  at  no  distant  day,  cordial  recognition  of  their  rights  even  from  those 
of  their  fellow-citizens  who  have  most  earnestly  opposed  them. 

"No  man  can  now  be  found  who  would  restore  slavery;  a  few  years 
hence,  if  the  colored  men  are  wise,  it  will  be  impossible  to  find  a  man  who 
will  avow  himself  in  favor  of  denying  or  abridging  their  right  to  vote.  " 


CHAPTEK   XLYIII. 

CAPTURE    OF    JEFFERSON    DAVIS — ITS    EMBARRASSMENT OF    WHAT 

HE  WAS    CHARGED,    AND    THE    PUNISHMENT    THAT    MIGHT  BE 
INFLICTED — WHY  MR.    CHASE   REFUSED  TO   HOLD  A    COURT   IN 

VIRGINIA RELATION   BETWEEN   CIVIL    AND    MILITARY    POWER 

THE   INDEPENDENCE   OF    THE    JUDICIAL     DEPARTMENT — THE 

QUESTION   OF   ADMITTING-  MR.   DAVIS    TO    BAIL — A    LETTER   OF 

MR.   CHASE    ON    THE    SUBJECT   OF    THE    DAVIS    TRIAL HOLDS 

COURT    IN    RALEIGH,   JUNE,    1867 SICKLEs's    ORDER    NO.    10 

PROCEEDINGS   IN  DAVIs's   CASE   AT  RICHMOND IS   PARDONED. 

THE  capture  of  Jefferson  Davis  involved  the  Government  in 
serious  embarrassment.  "  I  shall  never  cease  to  regret  it," 
wrote  Mr.  Sumner  in  the  summer  of  1865,  to  the  Chief -Justice, 
"  to  try  him  before  a  civil  tribunal  would  be  the  ne  plus  ultra 
of  folly."  *  But  Jefferson  Davis  was  not  amenable  to  trial  by 
a  military  court.  To  hang  or  shoot  him  would  have  been 
equally  repugnant  to  the  general  judgment  of  mankind.  To 
inflict  upon  him  any  punishment  less  than  capital,  would  have 
been  enormously  incommensurate  with  the  magnitude  of  the 
great  offenses  charged  against  him ;  and  not  to  punish  him  at 
all  seemed,  at  any  rate  to  the  great  body  of  the  party  in  power, 
like  a  burlesque  upon  justice.  With  this  body  of  partisans 
President  Johnson,  at  the  beginning  of  his  Administration, 
strongly  sympathized,  and  was  apparently  very  earnest  in  his 
determination  to  bring  leading  rebels  to  punishment. 

1  Mr.  Sumner  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Chase  bearing  date  Monday,  April  10, 1865,  says  : 
"  The  President  is  full  of  tenderness  to  all ;  and  several  times  repeated,  *  Judge  not 
that  ye  be  not  judged.'  This  he  said  even  when  Jefferson  Davis  was  named  as  one 
who  should  not  be  pardoned."  Mr.  Lincoln  had  just  returned  from  his  visit  to 
Richmond,  into  which  city  he  had  made  a  public  entry  the  day  after  its  fall. 


534  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Jefferson  Davis  was  captured  in  Georgia  on  the  10th  of 
May,  1865,  and  was  immediately  taken  to  Fortress  Monroe  and 
there  placed  in  confinememt,  "  to  await  such  action  as  might  be 
taken  by  the  proper  authorities  of  the  United  States  Govern 
ment."  Not  long  after,  he  was  indicted  in  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  District  of  Columbia  for  the  crime  of  high-treason ;  but 
Jefferson  Davis  had  not  committed  the  crime  of  high-treason  in 
the  District  of  Columbia,  and,  although  some  public  men  held 
that  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  rebel  armies  was  construc 
tively  present  with  all  the  insurgents  who  prosecuted  war  in 
Northern  States  and  in  the  District  where  the  indictment  was 
found,  the  Government  abandoned  the  doctrine  of  constructive 
presence  as  unconstitutional,  and  advised  that  the  proper  place 
for  trial  was  in  Yirginia.  Accordingly,  at  the  May  term  (1866) 
of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  that  State,  Jeffer 
son  Davis  was  indicted — not  for  the  crime  of  high-treason — 
but  that,  "  owing  allegiance  and  fidelity  to  the  United  States 
of  America,  and  not  having  the  fear  of  God  before  his  eyes,  nor 
weighing  the  duty  of  his  allegiance,  but  being  moved  and  se 
duced  by  the  instigation  of  the  devil;  and  wickedly  devising 
and  intending  the  peace  and  tranquillity  of  the  United  States 
to  disturb,  and  the  Government  of  the  United  States  to  sub 
vert,  he  "  did,  in  order  to  effect  his  "  traitorous  compassings, 
imaginings  and  intentions,"  "  on  the  15th  day  of  June  in  the 
year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-four,  in 
the  city  of  Richmond,  in  the  county  of  TIenrico  and  District 
of  Yirginia  ....  with  a  great  multitude  ....  to  the  number 
of  five  hundred  persons  and  upward,  armed  and  arrayed  in  a 
warlike  manner,  that  is  to  say,  with  cannons,  muskets,  pistols, 
swords,  dirks,  and  other  warlike  weapons  ....  most  wickedly, 
maliciously,  and  traitorously  ordain,  prepare,  levy  and  carry  on 
war  against  the  United  States,  contrary  to  the  duty  of  allegi 
ance  and  fidelity  of  said  Jefferson  Davis  "  to  the  Constitution  and 
the  Government,  and  the  peace  and  dignity  of  the  United 
States. 

If  convicted  of  the  offenses  charged  in  this  indictment,  Jef 
ferson  Davis  might  be  fined  any  sum  not  exceeding  ten  thou 
sand  dollars  or  be  imprisoned  not  exceeding  ten  years,  or  both ! l 

1  The  indictment  against  Davis  was  found  under  the  act  of  Congress  of  July  17, 


LETTER  TO  THE  PRESIDENT.  535 

Chief-Justice  Chase — whose  district  as  a  Circuit  Judge  of 
the  United  States  included  the  State  of  Virginia — had,  up  to 
May,  1866,  held  no  court  in  any  of  the  States  in  which  a  state 
of  war  still  existed,  and  he  declined  to  hold  any  court  in  any  of 
those  States  included  in  his  circuit  until  the  President  or  Con 
gress,  or  both  together,  had  proclaimed  the  restoration  of  peace 
and  the  civil  authority  as  paramount  to  the  military  authority. 
Some  correspondence  had  passed  between  the  President  and  the 
Chief -Justice,  on  this  subject,  as  early  as  October,  1865.  The 
President  addressed  a  note  to  the  Chief-Justice,  October  12, 
1865,  in  which  he  said :  "  It  may  become  necessary  that  the 
Government  prosecute  some  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors  com 
mitted  against  the  United  States  within  the  District  of  Virginia. 
Permit  me  to  inquire  whether  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  United 
States  for  that  district  is  so  far  organized  and  in  condition  to 
exercise  its  functions  that  yourself,  or  either  of  the  associate 
justices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  will  hold  a  term  of  the  Circuit 
Court  there  during  the  autumn  or  early  winter,  for  the  trial  of 
causes  ? "  To  this  Mr.  Chase  replied  that  "  under  ordinary  cir 
cumstances  the  regular  term  of  the  Curcuit  Court  authorized  by 
Congress  would  be  held  on  the  fourth  Monday  of  November, 
which,  this  year,  will  be  the  2Tth.  Only  a  week  will  inter 
vene  between  that  day  and  the  commencement  of  the  an 
nual  term  of  the  Supreme  Court,  when  all  the  judges  are  re 
quired  to  be  in  attendance  at  Washington.  The  time  is  too 
short  for  the  transaction  of  any  veiy  important  business.  "Were 
this  otherwise,  I  so  much  doubt  the  propriety  of  holding 
Circuit  Courts  of  the  United  States  in  States  which  have 
been  declared  by  the  Executive  and  Legislative  Departments  of 
the  national  Government  to  be  in  rebellion,  and  therefore  sub 
jected  to  martial  law,  before  the  complete  restoration  of  their 
broken  relations  with  the  nation,  and  the  supersedure  of  the 
military  by  the  civil  administration,  that  I  am  unwilling  to  hold 
such  courts  in  any  such  States  within  my  circuit,  which  includes 
Virginia,  until  Congress  shall  have  had  an  opportunity  to  con 
sider  and  act  on  the  whole  subject."  He  added:  "A  civil 

1862 ;  and  Judge  Field,  of  the  IT.  S.  Supreme  Court  in  the  "  Chapman  case,"  deter 
mined  at  San  Francisco,  held  that  participation  in  rebellion  after  the  passage  of  that 
act,  as  was  charged  against  Davis,  was  punishable  as  I  have  stated  in  the  text. 


536  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

court  in  a  district  under  martial  law  can  only  act  by  the 
sanction  and  under  the  supervision  of  military  power ;  and  I 
cannot  think  it  becomes  the  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  to 
exercise  jurisdiction  under  such  conditions.  In  this  view,  it  is 
proper  to  say  that  Mr.  Justice  Wayne,  whose  circuit  is  also  in 
the  rebel  States,  concurs  with  me.  I  have  had  no  opportunity 
of  consulting  the  other  justices,  but  the  Supreme  Court  has 
hitherto  declined  to  consider  cases  brought  before  it  by  appeal  or 
writ  of  error  from  circuit  or  district  courts  in  the  rebel  portion 
of  the  country.  No  very  reliable  inference,  it  is  true,  can  be 
drawn  from  this  action,  for  circumstances  have  greatly  changed 
since  the  court  adjourned ;  but,  so  far  as  it  goes,  it  favors  the 
conclusion  of  myself  and  Mr.  Justice  Wayne." 

At  a  later  date,  when  there  was  a  good  deal  of  newspaper 
clamor  on  the  subject  of  the  Davis  trial,  the  Chief -Justice  wrote 
me  thus :  "  The  proper  relation  of  military  to  civil  authority  is, 
in  time  of  peace,  subordination.  In  time  of  war,  and  on  the 
theatre  of  war,  the  military  authority  becomes  supreme ;  and,  in 
hostile  districts  occupied  by  military  forces,  the  commanding 
officer  must  govern,  subject  to  the  President.  So  long  as  mili 
tary  occupation  continues,  this  government  must  continue ;  and 
the  control  of  the  civil  courts  will  be  more  or  less  active,  as  the 
necessity  for  it  may  be  more  or  less  stringent.  Of  course,  while 
such  a  state  of  things  exists,  inferior  courts  may  very  properly 
aid  in  preserving  order,  and  in  administering  justice,  so  far  as 
allowed  or  requested  by  the  military  authority ;  but  members  of 
the  Supreme  Court  could  not  properly  hold  any  court,  the  pro 
ceedings  or  process  of  which  was  subject,  in  any  degree,  to  mili 
tary  control." 

On  the  2d  of  April,  1866,  the  President  issued  a  proclama 
tion,  called  "of  peace,"  in  which  he  declared  that  the  insur 
rection  which  had  existed  in  the  States  of  Georgia,  South  Caro 
lina,  North  Carolina,  Virginia,  Tennessee,  Alabama,  Louisiana, 
Arkansas,  Mississippi,  and  Florida,  was  at  an  end.  Mr.  Chase 
wrote  me,  on  the  15th  of  May  ensuing :  "  I  do  not  know  yet 
that  I  shall  hold  any  court  in  Virginia  or  in  North  Carolina. 
It  seemed  to  me,  when  I  first  read  the  President's  proclamation 
of  peace,  that  it  might  be  fairly  construed  as  abrogating  martial 
law,  and  restoring  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus ;  but  subsequent 


THE  MILITARY  POWER  DOMINANT.  537 

orders  from  the  War  Department  have  put  a  different  construc 
tion  upon  it,  and  I  do  not  wish,  so  long  as — with  my  notions — 
I  represent  the  justice  of  the  nation  in  its  highest  seat,  to  hold 
any  court  in  the  lately-rebel  States,  until  all  possibility  of  claim 
that  the  judicial  is  subordinate  to  the  military  power  is  removed 
by  express  declaration  from  the  President.  My  views  are  fully 
known  to  him,  and,  I  hope,  are  not  unsatisfactory.  They  cer 
tainly  are  far  from  the  slightest  shade  of  intention  to  embarrass 
his  action.  I  recognize,  absolutely  and  frankly,  all  his  rights 
and  duties  as  the  executive  head  of  the  nation,  and  mean  to  per 
form  mine,  as  head  of  the  judiciary,  with  perfect  fidelity  to  him 
and  to  the  country." 

These  are  noble  expressions. 

On  the  7th  day  of  June,  subsequent  to  the  finding  of  the 
indictment  against  Jefferson  Davis  in  Yirginia,  Mr.  Charles 
O' Conor,  ex-Governor  Pratt,  of  Maryland,  and  Attorney-Gen 
eral  Speed — the  two  former  representing  Mr.  Davis,  and  the 
latter  representing  the  Government — waited  on  the  Chief-Jus 
tice,  at  his  residence,  with  a  view  to  ascertain  whether  he  would 
entertain  an  application  to  release  Mr.  Davis  on  bail.  Mr. 
O' Conor  suggested  that  such  an  application  might  properly  be 
made  at  chambers  in  Washington,  although  out  of  the  District 
of  Yirginia,  in  which  the  indictment  had  been  found ;  and  ex 
pressed  the  hope  that  it  would  be  entertained,  and  that  bail 
would  be  taken. 

The  Attorney-General  did  not  consent  to  the  hearing  of 
the  application,  but  remarked  that,  if  the  Chief-Justice  was 
willing  to  hear  it,  he  would  appear  on  behalf  of  the  Govern 
ment. 

On  this  occasion,  the  Chief-Justice  repeated,  in  substance, 
what  he  had  written  in  his  private  correspondence.  He  said 
that,  whenever  it  should  become  apparent,  either  by  the  procla 
mation  of  the  President  or  the  legislation  of  Congress,  or  by 
clear  evidence  from  other  sources,  that  martial  law  was  abro 
gated,  and  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  fully  restored  in  Yirginia, 
he  should  unite  with  the  District  Judge  in  holding  the  Circuit 
Court  in  that  State.  At  present  the  Federal  as  well  as  the 
State  courts,  must  act  in  a  quasi-military  character,  subject  to 
such  control  by  the  President  and  by  Congress,  as  might  be 


538  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

deemed  essential  to  complete  pacification  and  restoration.  Such 
action  by  a  subordinate  court  was  undoubtedly  proper ;  and  the 
District  and  Circuit  Courts  of  the  United  States  for  the  District 
of  Virginia,  might  be  very  properly  held  by  the  district  judge, 
subject  to  such  military  supervision  as  might  be  found  needful. 
He  had  been  of  the  opinion,  however,  that  neither  the  Chief- 
Justice,  nor  any  of  the  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  exercising, 
as  they  did,  the  highest  judicial  authority  of  the  nation,  could 
properly  join  in  holding  the  Circuit  Courts  under  such  circum 
stances.  He  was  still  of  this  opinion. 

The  President,  it  was  true,  had  issued  a  peace  proclamation, 
which,  in  the  absence  of  any  action  requiring  a  different  interpre 
tation,  would  probably  have  wan-anted  the  inference  that  the  ha 
beas  corpus  was  fully  restored  and  martial  law  abrogated  in 
all  the  States  recently  in  arms  against  the  Union,  except  Texas. 
But  this  proclamation  had  been  followed  by  other  orders  from 
the  President  through  the  "War  Department,  inconsistent  wdth 
that  interpretation ;  and  in  such  a  matter  as  this  the  Executive 
construction  of  an  Executive  act  ought  to  be  followed. 

If  he  were  to  hold  the  Circuit  Court  in  the  District  of  Vir- 
ginia  in  the  same  manner  as  in  the  districts  in  other  States — as 
for  example  in  the  Districts  of  Maryland  and  Delaware — it  would 
be  his  duty  to  issue  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  on  application  in 
behalf  of  any  person  in  custody  within  the  district  under  or  by 
color  of  authority  of  the  United  States,  and  examine  the  question 
of  the  lawfulness  of  such  custody.  If,  therefore,  an  application 
should  be  made  for  that  writ  in  behalf  of  Jefferson  Davis,  held, 
as  everybody  knows,  in  such  custody  within  the  district,  it  would 
be  his  duty  to  issue  it.  What  would  be  the  consequences  ?  If 
martial  law  is  at  end,  the  custody  is  clearly  illegal  and  the  pris 
oner  must  be  discharged  or  admitted  to  bail,  or  committed  to 
the  State  jail  or  prison  of  Virginia,  under  the  acts  of  Congress 
relating  to  the  custody  of  prisoners. 

It  was  manifestly  improper,  the  Chief -Justice  thought,  for 
him  to  interpose  in  that  way  with  a  custody  which,  upon  the 
supposition  that  martial  law  yet  exists  in  Virginia,  is  purely  a 
matter  of  military  discretion  with  the  President. 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  Chief-Justice  said  he  could 
not,  at  present,  depart  from  the  line  of  action  he  had  prescribed 


FEDERAL  COURTS  IN  REBEL  STATES.  539 

to  himself.  lie  could  not,  consistently  with  his  views  of  public 
duty,  hold  a  quasi-military  court ;  nor  could  he  hold  a  court  in 
any  district  in  a  State  lately  in  rebellion  until  all  semblance  ot 
military  control  over  Federal  courts  and  their  process  and  pro 
ceedings,  had  been  removed  by  the  action  of  the  political  depart 
ments  of  the  Government. 

He  did  not  question,  but,  on  the  contrary,  approved  the  ac 
tion  of  the  District  Court  in  holding  such  courts.  Such  a  court 
was  now  being  held  in  Yirginia  by  the  district  judge.  An 
application  to  discharge  Mr.  Davis  on  bail  might  very  properly 
be  addressed  to  him ;  and  there  was  no  reason  to  doubt  that,  if 
the  Government  should  consent,  such  an  order  might  be  made. 
The  district  judge,  sitting  as  he  did,  might  very  properly  carry 
out  the  views  of  the  Executive  made  known  through  the  Attor 
ney-General. 

For  himself,  the  same  reasons  which  would  restrain  him  from 
holding  the  court,  would  restrain  him,  and  even  more  power 
fully,  from  exercising  any  jurisdiction,  as  a  single  judge,  within 
the  District  of  Yirginia ;  and  he  must,  therefore,  decline  to  enter 
tain  the  application  to  admit  Mr.  Davis  to  bail. 

There  was  another  consideration  which  would  control  his 
present  action  even  if  he  felt  himself  warranted  in  holding  the 
court.  Mr.  Davis  is  now  a  military  prisoner,  and  not  in  any 
sense  in  the  custody  of  the  court.  Before  an  application  to 
discharge  on  bail  could  be  considered,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
inquire  into  the  legality  of  the  military  custody  by  habeas  corpus. 
An  application  for  that  writ,  therefore,  its  allowance,  and  an  ad 
judication  that  the  present  custody  was  illegal,  would  be  indis 
pensable  preliminary  proceedings;  and  no  application  for  the 
writ  had  been  made. 

He  mentioned  this  objection  to  the  action  desired  in  behalf 
of  Mr.  Davis,  he  said,  without  thinking  it  of  much  importance ; 
for  under  ordinary  circumstances,  no  doubt,  the  objection  could 
be  easily  removed  by  an  application  for  the  writ  and  proper  pro 
ceedings  under  it.  At  present  the  same  considerations  which 
would  restrain  him  from  acting  on  an  application  to  discharge 
on  bail,  would  equally  restrain  him  from  the  allowance  of  a  writ 
'of  habeas  corpus. 

After  these  observations,  Mr.  0' Conor  and  Mr.  Pratt,  with 


540  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

the  Attorney-General,  withdrew,  and  no  application  to  admit  to 
bail  was  made.1 

On  the  24th  of  September  following  this  interview,  the 
Chief -Justice  wrote  me  a  long  letter  in  relation  to  the  Davis 
matter.  "  I  see, "  he  said,  "  that  the  papers  are  again  talking 
about  the  trial  of  Mr.  Davis.  Perhaps  you  would  like  a  few 
facts.  If  you  were  here  I  would  explain  every  thing  fully,  and 
let  you  take  it  down  in  short-hand,  but  I  have  not  much  -time 
to  write,  and  I  hate  to  write  any  way. "  He  then  proceeded  to 
say: 

"  1.  I  have  no  more  to  do  with  the  trial  of  Jefferson  Davis  than 
any  other  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  except  it  happens  that 
I  was  allotted  or  assigned  to  the  circuit  in  which  Virginia  is,  to 
accommodate  Justice  Swayne,  who  desired  to  be  assigned  to  the 
circuit  in  which  Ohio  is. 

"  2.  When  the  Chief- Justice  holds  a  court,  he  tries  what  cases 
he  finds  on  the  docket,  if  they  are  ready  for  trial.  It  makes  no 
difference  to  me  who  the  parties  are ;  my  duty  is  to  administer 
the  law. 

"  3.  I  never  have  inquired,  and  never  will  inquire,  what  cases 
are  to  come  before  me,  except  in  the  regular  course  and  way. 
I  neither  seek  nor  shun  the  responsibility  of  trying  Jefferson 
Davis  or  any  other  person. 

"  4.  I  have  held  three  terms  of  the  Circuit  Court  in  and  for  the 
District  of  Maryland  since  my  appointment,  now  nearly  two 
years  ago.  There  were  indictments  for  treason  pending  at  the 
first  term,  and,  except  in  certain  cases  where  the  accused  has  been 
pardoned,  they  are  pending  yet.  But  the  Government  has  not 
thought  proper  to  proceed  to  trial  in  any  of  these  cases.  If  the 
Government  had  desired  a  judicial  exposition  of  the  law  of  trea 
son,  it  might  have  been  had,  so  far  as  I  was  able  to  give  it,  at 
either  of  these  terms;  in  April  and  November,  1865,  or  in 
April,  1866.  .  .  . 

"  6.  I  held  no  court  in  Virginia  in  1865,  because  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  was  suspended  and  martial  law  enforced  within 

1  An  application  to  admit  to  bail  was  made  to  John  C.  Underwood,  United  States 
District  Judge  for  the  District  of  Virginia,  a  few  days  after  this ;  but  Judge  Under 
wood  refused  upon  the  ground  that  Davis  was  a  military  prisoner ;  and  was  not  and 
never  had  been  in  the  custody  of  the  marshal  of  the  District  Court. 


THE  DAVIS  TRIAL.  541 

its  territory ;  and  in  my  judgment  all  courts  in  a  region  under 
martial  law  must  be  gtfOft&military  courts ;  and  it  was  neither 
right  nor  proper  that  the  Chief- Justice  or  any  justice  of  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States — the  highest  tribunal  of  the 
nation,  and  the  head  of  one  of  the  coordinate  departments  of  the 
Government — should  hold  a  court  subject  to  the  control  or  su 
pervision  of  the  Executive  Department,  exercising  military  pow 
ers.  In  this  opinion  I  believe  all  lawyers  of  reputation,  of  what 
ever  political  opinions,  concur. 

"  7.  Soon  after  the  adjournment  of  the  Supreme  Court  in 
April  last,  the  President  issued  a  proclamation,  the  effect  of 
which  seemed  to  me  to  be  the  abrogation  of  martial  law  and 
military  government,  and  the  restoration  of  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  in  all  the  States  except  Texas ;  and  I  determined  upon 
holding  a  court  at  the  ensuing  May  term,  but  various  Executive 
orders  inconsistent  with  the  conclusion  that  military  govern 
ment  had  ceased,  soon  followed  the  proclamation,  and  led  to  an 
apprehension  that  the  construction  I  had  put  upon  it  was  not 
intended.  I  therefore  reconsidered  my  purpose  to  hold  the  Cir 
cuit  Court,  and  did  not  hold  one. 

"  S.  But,  determined  to  omit  no  duty,  I  called  upon  the  Presi 
dent  in  April  or  May  (I  cannot  fix  the  exact  date,  but  probably 
in  May),  and  urged  him  to  issue  a  proclamation,  submitting  at 
the  same  time  a  draft  of  one,  declaring,  in  unequivocal  terms, 
that  martial  law  was  abrogated  and  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  re 
stored  in  all  cases  of  which  the  courts  of  the  United  States  had 
jurisdiction,  and  in  respect  to  all  processes  issuing  out  of  or  from 
such  courts.  But  this  was  not  done. 

"  9.  Subsequently,  however,  another  proclamation  was  issued, 
affirming  the  restoration  of  peace  throughout  the  whole  country, 
which  has,  as  yet,  been  followed  by  no  order  asserting  the  con 
tinuance  of  military  government.  Under  this  proclamation, 
therefore,  it  seems  fair  to  conclude  that  martial  law  and  military 
government  are  permanently  abrogated  and  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  fully  restored  ;  and  this  conclusion  warrants  the  holding 
of  courts  by  the  Chief-Justice  and  the  associate  justices  as  the  law 
may  direct. 

"  10.  There  is  no  act  of  Congress,  however,  which  authorizes 
the  holding  of  any  Circuit  Court  in  Virginia  until  the  fourth 


542  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Monday  in  November,  unless  the  Chief-Justice  should  order  a 
special  term,  as  he  is  authorized  to  do  by  an  act  of  the  last  ses 
sion.  I  would  no  doubt  order  a  term  if  the  District  Attorney 
or  the  Attorney-General  should  represent  that  a  term  is  needed 
for  the  due  administration  of  public  justice. 

"  11.  An  act  of  the  last  session  of  Congress  changes  all  the 
circuits  (except  the  first  and  second,  which  include  the  districts 
in  New  England  and  New  York),  and  reduces  the  number  from 
time  to  time  ;  but  it  neither  makes  nor  authorizes  any  allotment 
of  the  Chief- Justice  or  justices  to  these  new  circuits  ;  and  it  is 
very  doubtful  whether  the  old  allotment  gives  any  jurisdiction 
to  hold  courts  in  the  districts  which  happen  to  remain  in  the 
same  circuit,  numerically,  as  at  the  time  of  that  allotment ;  while 
it  is  quite  certain  that  neither  the  Chief -Justice  nor  any  justice 
can  exercise  jurisdiction  in  any  circuit  except  by  allotment  or 
assignment  under  an  act  of  Congress.1  It  is  very  doubtful,  there 
fore,  whether  the  Chief- Justice  can  hold  any  court  in  Virginia 
till  after  some  further  legislation  by  Congress,  making  or  au 
thorizing  allotment  to  the  new  circuits. 

"  12.  The  absence  of  the  Chief- Justice  or  a  justice  of  the  Su 
preme  Court  from  any  circuit  does  not,  however,  prevent  the 
holding  of  Circuit  Courts,  for  the  law  provides  expressly  that 
in  the  absence  of  a  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  Circuit 
Court  may  be  held  by  the  district  judge.  Circuit  Courts  have, 
accordingly,  been  held  in  all  the  circuits  within  the  rebel  States 
by  the  district  judges,  ever  since  the  reestablishment  of  the 
authority  of  the  United  States  and  the  appointment  of  district 
judges.  These  courts,  during  military  government,  were  held 
of  course  subject  to  military  control  and  supervision.  Any  trial 
which  might  have  taken  place,  the  Chief -Justice  or  an  associate 
justice  being  present,  might  have  taken  place  with  equal  juris 
diction  and  equal  effect,  the  Chief- Justice  or  an  associate  justice 
being  absent.  ...  I  had  no  idea,"  said  Mr.  Chase,  in  conclusion 
of  the  subject,  "  that  this  statement  would  be  so  long ;  and  yet 
many  details  are  omitted.  But  I  believe  it  is  clear  and  will 
enable  you  to  understand  the  case,  and  make  others  understand 
it  also,  if  occasion  arises." 

1  Mr.  Chase  submitted  this  question  to  the  associate  justices,  and  they  agreed 
with  him  in  this  view. 


GENERAL  SICKLES'S  ORDER  NO.  10.  543 

It  was  not  until  June,  1867,  that  the  Chief -Justice  held  a 
court  in  any  one  of  the  insurgent  States,  and  then  at  Raleigh,  in 
North  Carolina.  lie  stated  at  the  opening,  and  before  proceed 
ing  with  the  the  ordinary  business  of  the  court,  that  the  military 
control  over  the  civil  tribunals  had  been  withdrawn  by  the 
President,  and  that  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  which  had  been 
suspended,  was  restored.  This  was  mostly  effected  by  the  Presi 
dent's  proclamation  of  April,  1866,  and  finally  by  the  proclama 
tion  of  August  20th  subsequent.  These  proclamations,  he  said, 
reinstated  the  full  authority  of  the  national  courts  in  all  mat 
ters  within  their  jurisdiction. 

On  the  llth  of  April  preceding,  General  Sickles  had  promul 
gated  his  famous  "  Order  No.  10."  The  second  section  of  this 
order  declared  that  "judgments  or  decrees  for  the  payment  of 
money,  or  causes  of  action  arising  between  the  19th  of  Decem 
ber,  I860,  and  the  15th  of  May,  1865,  shall  not  be  enforced  by 
execution  against  the  property  or  person  of  the  defendant.  Pro 
ceedings  in  such  causes  of  action  now  pending  shall  be  stayed ; 
and  no  suit  or  process  shall  be  hereafter  instituted  or  commenced 
for  any  such  causes  of  action."  But  the  Chief-Justice,  during 
the  term  of  the  court  held  in  June,  gave  judgment  against  cer 
tain  defendants  in  North  Carolina,  and  writs  of  execution  were 
issued  and  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  marshal  of  the  court  to  be 
served  upon  their  property.  A  deputy-marshal,  who  was  charged 
with  this  duty,  was  expressly  forbidden  to  perform  it  by  the 
military  commandant  at  "Wilmington,  where  the  defendants 
resided  and  their  property  was  located.  A  representation  of  this 
interference  was  made  to  the  Government  at  "Washington,  with 
the  result  of  early  instructions  to  the  military  authorities  that 
there  must  be  no  obstruction  of  the  process  of  the  United  States 
courts.  This  was  done  without  any  appeal  to  the  Chief- Justice 
or  any  action  taken  by  him,  and  effectually  established  the  fact 
that  the  civil  power  was  again  supreme.  "  But,"  said  Mr. 
Chase,  in  a  letter  to  Colonel  John  D.  Yan  Buren,  of  New  York, 
in  April,  1868,  "  no  one  will  now  doubt,  I  think,  that  had  I 
been  in  North  Carolina  when  the  process  of  the  court  was  inter 
fered  with,  the  judicial  authority  would  have  been  maintained. 
I  hardly  think  General  Sickles  would  have  arrested  me  for 
directing  the  commencement  of  the  usual  criminal  proceedings 


544  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

against  the  officer  who  resisted  the  process.  Certainly  no  fear  of 
the  consequences  would  have  deterred  me  from  the  performance 
of  my  duty." 

Jefferson  Davis  remained  in  confinement  at  Fortress  Monroe 
until  the  13th  of  May,  186T,  when  he  was  taken  before  Judge 
Underwood,  holding  a  Circuit  Court  at  Richmond,  and  admitted 
to  bail  in  the  sum  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Among 
the  names  upon  his  bail-bond  were  those  of  Gerrit  Smith  and 
Horace  Greeley. 

Mr.  Chase  did  not  attend  upon  the  term  of  the  Circuit  Court 
held  in  Richmond  in  November,  1867,  but  was  present  at  the 
court  held  in  June,  1868.  Some  proceedings  were  had  in  the 
case  of  Mr.  Davis.  An  agreement  between  Mr.  Evarts,  at  that 
time  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States,  and  representing 
the  Government,  and  Mr.  O' Conor,  of  counsel  for  Mr.  Davis, 
that  the  case  should  not  then  be  called  for  trial,  was  read,  but  a 
wish  was  expressed  that  some  day  should  be  fixed  when  it  might 
proceed.  On  this  paper  a  motion  for  continuance  was  made. 
Mr.  Chase  inquired  if  the  counsel  present  were  ready  for  trial 
independently  of  this  paper.  In  answer,  it  was  stated  for  the 
Government,  that  Mr.  Chandler,  the  District-Attorney,  could  not 
be  present  in  consequence  of  the  very  imminent  danger  of  his 
wife  (who  was  then  supposed  to  be  dying),  and  that  his  associate 
counsel  could  not  proceed  in  the  District-Attorney's  absence; 
besides  which,  the  accused,  Mr.  Davis,  was  not  in  court.  The 
counsel  for  Mr.  Davis  stated  that  the  absence  of  Mr.  Davis  was 
occasioned  by  his  understanding,  founded  upon  an  agreement 
between  the  counsel  made  in  New  York,  that  the  case  would 
not  be  tried  during  the  pending  term ;  and  that  they  desired  a 
continuance  to  the  next  regular  term.  The  Chief -Justice  said 
it  would  suit  him  better  to  attend  during  October,  if  not  obliged 
at  that  time  to  be  in  some  other  district ;  but  he  thought  that, 
under  the  circumstances,  the  counsel  for  the  accused  had  a  right 
to  have  the  case  continued,  if  they  insisted  upon  the  motion ; 
and  that  he  would  attend  upon  the  fourth  Monday  in  the  follow 
ing  November,  and  remain  in  attendance  until  obliged  to  return 
to  Washington  to  be  present  in  the  Supreme  Court.  The  case 
was  hereupon  continued ;  it  being  simply  impossible,  under  the 
circumstances,  to  proceed  with  it. 


MR.  DAVIS  IS  PARDONED.  545 

At  the  term  of  the  United  States  Circuit  Court  for  the  Dis 
trict  of  Virginia,  held  in  November,  1868,  at  Richmond,  a  nolle 
prosequi  was  entered  in  Mr.  Davis's  case,  and  he  was  discharged 
out  of  custody  accordingly.  He  was  included  in  the  general 
amnesty  proclaimed  by  President  Johnson  on  the  25th  of  De 
cember  subsequent,  which,  "  unconditionally  and  without  reser 
vation,  to  all  and  to  every  person  who,  directly  or  indirectly 
participated  in  the  late  insurrection  or  rebellion,"  granted  "  a 
full  pardon  and  amnesty  for  the  offense  of  treason  against  the 
United  States,  or  of  adhering  to  their  enemies  during  the  late 
civil  war,  with  restoration  of  all  rights,  privileges  and  immuni 
ties  under  the  Constitution  and  the  laws." 

35 


CHAPTER  XLIX. 

UNIVERSAL   SUFFRAGE  A   NECESSITY   OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY 

THE   EXCOMMUNICATION  OF   THE  PRESIDENT GENERAL  GRANT 

FOR     PRESIDENT — OBJECT    OF     THE     IMPEACHMENT — ASHLEY'S 

EFFORT      TO      BRING     IT     ABOUT — THE      STANTON      MATTER 

REMOVAL      OF     MR.     STANTON,     FEBRUARY     21,    1868  —  CONSE 
QUENCES     OF PROMPT     IMPEACHMENT     OF    THE    PRESDDENT 

QUESTIONS   TOUCHING   THE  POWERS   OF    THE    CHIEF- JUSTICE  IN 

THE   TRIAL THEIR   SETTLEMENT EXCITEMENT TORRENTS   OF 

LIES     AND     ABUSE — HENDERSON,     OF     MISSOURI — THE     PRESI 
DENT'S   ACQUITTAL. 

~YT7~HEN  Mr.  Chase  left  Washington  about  the  first  of  May, 
V  V  1865,  on  his  Southern  tour,  he  believed  that  his  own  mind 
and  that  of  the  President  were  in  substantial  accord  upon  the 
policy  of  reconstruction.  When,  upon  his  arrival  at  Cincinnati  in 
June,  he  learned  of  the  change  in  the  President's  views,  he  was 
both  surprised  and  disappointed.  He  did  not  doubt  the  final 
judgment  of  the  nation  in  respect  of  the  extension  of  the  suffrage 
to  all  men,  white  and  black,  but  he  foresaw  clearly  enough  that, 
with  the  President  hostile  to  it,  a  serious  party  struggle  impended. 
Universal  suffrage  was  a  necessity  which  the  Republican 
party  could  not  escape.  The  blacks  must  vote,  or  the  Republican 
party  must  die.  Undoubtedly,  there  was  a  considerable  body  of 
the  party  opposed  to  negro  suffrage,  and  these  found  some  ex 
pression  through  well-known  leaders.  Colonel  Forney  made  a 
speech  at  Carlisle,  substantially  indorsing  the  President ;  Oliver 
P.  Morton  did  the  same  thing  in  Indiana  ;  and  Schuyler  Colfax 
hung  upon  the  verge  of  both  sides  until  the  unmistakable 


PARTY  DISORGANIZATION.  547 

sentiment  of  the  party  compelled  him  to  unmask.  The  Re- 
publican  State  Convention  of  New  York  in  the  fall  of  1865, 
perhaps  that  of  Indiana  also,  if  it  did  not  indorse  the  particular 
policy  of  the  President  on  this  subject,  did  indorse  his  Admin 
istration,  and  some  conspicuous  members  of  the  party,  notably 
Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Doolittle,  adhered  to  the  President  to  the 
end. 

The  great  mass  of  Republicans  instinctively  felt,  however, 
that  the  existence  of  the  party  was  bound  up  in  universal  suffrage, 
and  believed,  at  the  same  time,  that  it  was  necessary  to  the 
permanent  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  country.  Everywhere 
the  party  took  ground  in  favor  of  it ;  expelled  those  who  opposed 
it,  and  excommunicated  even  the  President,  who  had  been 
elected  by  their  own  votes. 

The  President  was  the  fountain  of  office,  and  in  breaking 
from  him,  the  party,  it  must  be  conceded,  made  great  sacrifices. 

The  condition  of  parties  in  the  fall  and  winter  of  1867-'6S, 
was  one  of  disorganization,  among  Republicans,  because  of  the 
internal  war  upon  the  President ;  and  among  Democrats,  because 
of  the  weakening  of  old  party  ideas,  want  of  unity,  and  want  of 
capable  and  popular  leaders.  It  was  perfectly  well  known  that 
the  President  would  place  the  power  of  the  Administration  on 
the  side  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  although  there  were  many 
offices  that  he  could  not  control,  there  were  more  that  he  could, 
and  these  might  be  decisive  of  the  presidential  succession ;  and 
Mr.  Johnson  was  a  candidate  even  for  the  Democratic  nomination. 
The  Republican  leaders  were  fully  alive  to  the  precariousness  of 
the  party  position ;  they  felt  the  vast  importance  of  the  presi 
dential  patronage ;  many  of  them  felt,  too,  that  according  to  the 
maxim  that  "  to  the  victors  belong  the  spoils,"  the  Republican 
party  was  rightfully  entitled  to  the  Federal  patronage ;  and  they 
determined  to  get  possession  of  it.  There  was  but  one  method, 
and  that  was  by  impeachment  and  removal  of  the  President. 

Meantime  a  wide-spread  sentiment  had  grown  up  in  the 
Republican  ranks  that  a  candidate  must  be  nominated  who  would 
command  the  votes  of  disaffected  Republicans  and  the  stragglers 
of  both  parties.  This  same  sentiment  pointed  to  General  Grant 
as  the  available  man.  But  General  Grant's  political  views  were 
unknown ;  he  was  a  War  Democrat,  but  so  was  Andrew  Johnson  ; 


548  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

and  the  experience  with  Mr.  Johnson  disinclined  some  of  the 
more  radical  Republicans  to  another  experiment  of  the  same  sort. 

The  impeachment  programme  had,  therefore,  two  motives : 
the  first  and  most  important  was,  of  course,  to  get  Andrew 
Johnson  out  of  the  presidency,  and  the  second  and  hardly  less 
important  was,  to  keep  General  Grant  from  getting  in.  If  it 
had  succeeded,  General  Grant  would  not  have  been  the  nomi 
nee  of  the  Chicago  Convention  of  1868. 

An  effort  at  impeachment  was  made  at  the  second  session  of 
the  Thirty-ninth  Congress,  in  January,  1867.  General  Ashley, 
of  Ohio,  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  charged  the  President 
with  "high  crimes  and  misdemeanors,"  with  usurpation  of 
power  and  violation  of  law ;  that  he  had  made  a  corrupt  use  of 
the  appointing,  the  pardoning,  and  the  veto  powers  ;  that  he  had 
corruptly  disposed  of  public  property,  and  had  corruptly  inter 
fered  in  elections.  A  committee  was  appointed  to  investigate 
these  charges ;  an  investigation  was  made,  and  three  reports  were 
submitted  by  different  members.  This  was  during  the  first 
session  of  the  Fourtieth  Congress  in  December,  1867.  A  majority 
of  the  committee  reported  in  favor  of  impeachment;  but  the 
House  refused  to  concur ;  the  vote  being,  for  impeachment,  fifty- 
six,  all  Republicans  ;  against  it,  one  hundred  and  eight,  of  whom 
sixty-seven  were  Republicans  and  forty-one  were  Democrats. 
Twenty-two  members  were  absent  or  did  not  vote. 

Meantime,  the  struggle  between  Congress  and  the  President 
had  grown  more  bitter  and  implacable,  and  had  been  carried  into 
the  President's  official  household.  Mr.  Stanton  was  a  partisan 
of  Congress,  but  clung  to  his  office  as  Secretary  of  War,  despite 
the  President's  repeatedly-expressed  wish  that  he  would  retire. 
This  wish  took  form  at  last  in  writing.  On  the  5th  of  August, 
1867,  the  President  sent  Mr.  Stanton  a  brief  note :  "  Sir— Public 
considerations  of  a  high  character  constrain  me  to  say  that  your 
resignation  as,.  Secretary  of  War  will  be  accepted."  This  was  all. 
Mr.  Stanton  was  almost  as  brief :  "  Sir —  ....  In  reply,  I  have 
the  honor  to  say  that  public  considerations  of  a  high  character, 
which  alone  have  induced  me  to  continue  at  the  head  of  this  de 
partment,  constrain  me  not  to  resign  the  office  of  Secretary  of 
War  before  the  next  meeting  of  Congress."  On  the  12th  of 
August,  the  President  suspended  Mr.  Stanton  from  office,  and 


REMOVAL  OF  MR.  STANTON.  549 

empowered  General  Grant,  temporarily,  to  act  as  Secretary  of 
War. 

Matters  remained  in  this  position  for  some  months ;  but,  im 
mediately  after  the  meeting  of  Congress,  in  December,  the  Pres 
ident  submitted  to  the  Senate  his  reasons  for  suspending  Mr. 
Stanton  from  the  exercise  of  his  office.  A  month  later — on  the 
13th  of  January — the  Senate,  in  executive  session,  voted  to  non 
concur  in  the  act  of  suspension.  General  Grant  immediately 
retired,  and  Mr.  Stanton  was  restored. 

There  was  now  a  brief  interval  of  at  least  partial  quiet,  bro 
ken,  on  the  21st  of  February,-  by  the  action  of  the  President. 
He  removed  Mr.  Stanton,  and  appointed  Brigadier-General 
Lorenzo  Thomas  Secretary  of  War  ad  interim.  Mr.  Stanton 
refused  to  submit,  but  ordered  General  Thomas  out  of  his  office, 
and  sent  a  communication  to  the  House  of  Representatives, 
inclosing  the  President's  letter  of  removal.  Mr.  Covode,  of 
Pennsylvania,  immediately,  as  a  question  of  privilege,  offered  a 
resolution,  "  That  Andrew  Johnson,  President  of  the  United 
States,  be  impeached  for  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors."  This 
resolution  was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Reconstruction, 
and  shortly  after  the  House  adjourned. 

The  excitement  in  Washington,  growing  out  of  the  removal 
of  Mr.  Stanton  and  its  immediate  consequences,  was  very  great, 
and  communicated  itself  rapidly  to  the  country.  The  quarrel 
between  the  President  and  Congress,  it  was  felt,  had  at  last  cul 
minated,  and  the  final  struggle  was  at  hand. 

On  Saturday,  the  22d  of  February,  an  immense  throng  of 
citizens  and  strangers  congregated  in  the  Capitol,  to  watch  the 
proceedings.  "At  ten  minutes  past  two  o'clock,"  according  to 
the  National  Intelligencer ',  "  Mr.  Thad'deus  Stevens  rose  to  make 
a  report  from  the  Committee  on  Reconstruction.  The  Speaker 
admonished  the  spectators  in  the  gallery,  and  the  members  on 
the  floor,  to  preserve  order  during  the  proceedings  about  to  take 
place,  and  to  manifest  neither  approbation  nor  disapprobation. 
At  twenty  minutes  past  two,  Mr.  Stevens,  of  Pennsylvania, 
chairman  of  the  Reconstruction  Committee,  presented  a  report 
to  the  House."  The  substance  of  that  report  was,  that  the  Pres 
ident  had  signed  an  order  or  commission,  directing  one  Lorenzo 
Thomas  to  take  possession  of  the  books,  papers,  records,  and 


550  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

other  public  property,  in  the  War  Department.  The  conclusion 
of  the  committee  was,  that  Andrew  Johnson,  President  of  the 
United  States,  be  impeached  of  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors. 
This  report  and  resolution  were  debated  during  the  afternoon 
and  evening  sessions,  and  the  House  did  not  adjourn  till  after 
eleven  o'clock.  The  House  reassembled  on  Monday  morning, 
at  ten,  and  resumed  consideration  of  the  impeachment  resolu 
tion  ;  the  interval  between  ten  o'clock  and  noon,  the  regular  hour 
for  meeting,  being  regarded  as  technically  belonging  to  the  ses 
sion  of  Saturday.  At  five  o'clock,  of  Monday,  a  vote  was  taken, 
amid  great  and  suppressed  excitement.  One  hundred  and 
twenty-six  voted  for  the  resolution,  and  forty-seven  against  it. 
All  the  affirmatives  were  [Republicans,  and  all  the  negatives  were 
Democrats.  One  committee,  of  seven  members,  was  appointed 
to  prepare  articles  of  impeachment ;  and  another,  of  two  mem 
bers,  to  go  to  the  bar  of  the  Senate,  and  in  the  name  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  and  of  all  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
to  impeach  Andrew  Johnson,  President  of  the  United  States, 
of  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors ;  and  to  ask  the  Senate  to  take 
order  for  the  appearance  of  said  Andrew  Johnson,  to  answer  to 
said  impeachment — a  high-sounding  duty,  which  was  committed 
to  Thaddeus  Stevens  and  John  A.  Bingharn,  and  sonorously  dis 
charged  by  them,  in  the  Senate,  on  the  next  day,  Tuesday,  the 
25th  of  February. 

It  was  supposed,  by  the  principal  prosecutors  in  this  great 
drama,  that  the  whole  enterprise  might  be  finished  up  in  a  fort 
night  or  three  weeks :  Andrew  Johnson  a  private  citizen,  and 
Benjamin  F.  Wade  the  acting-President !  Three  weeks  or  more 
were  spent  in  mere  preliminaries,  and  three  months  elapsed  be 
fore  the  end  was  reached,  and  that  end  w^as  defeat ! 

But  the  Senate  took  prompt  order  upon  the  matter,  and  im 
mediately  (25th  of  February)  appointed  a  committee  to  consider 
the  matter,  and  make  report.  This  committee  consisted  of  seven 
persons,  two  of  whom — Senators  Howard  and  Edmunds — the 
next  day,*  February  26th,  waited  upon  the  Chief -Justice,  after 
the  adjournment  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  informed  him  of 
the  action  of  the  Senate,  and  that  the  committee  of  which 
they  were  members  was  about  to  prepare  some  rules  for  the 
government  of  the  impeachment  proceedings,  and  would  willing- 


POWERS  OF  THE  CHIEF-JUSTICE.  551 

ly  receive  any  suggestions  lie  had  to  make ;  and  would  be  pleased 
also  to  have  him  attend  the  meetings  of  the  committee,  if  it 
would  be  convenient  for  him  to  do  so.  Some  other  conversation 
took  place,  almost,  if  not  wholly,  in  relation  to  what  the  Chief- 
Justice  supposed  his  right  to  vote  would  be,  in  the  Senate  Court 
about  to  be  organized  for  the  President's  trial.  Mr.  Chase  said 
he  had  not  deeply  considered  the  subject,  but  supposed  he  would 
be  a  member  of  the  court,  and,  as  such,  would  have  a  right  to 
vote  in  it;  though,  inasmuch  as  his  being  required  to  preside 
was  in  consequence  of  the  disqualification  of  the  Yice-President, 
it  might  be  limited  to  a  vote  in  case  of  a  tie.  But  Mr.  Chase 
gathered,  from  the  observations  of  one  or  perhaps  both  the 
Senators,  that  the  right  of  the.  Chief -Justice  to  vote  in  any  case 
was  doubted,  or  denied,  by  some  of  the  members  of  the  com 
mittee.  This  interview  did  not  occupy  more  than  five  minutes 
of  time. 

This  question  was  started  right  here  upon  the  very  threshold 
of  the  trial  for  a  simple  and  obvious  reason.  It  was  .certain  that 
there  were  some  Republican  members  of  the  Senate  who  could 
not  be  brought  to  vote  for  conviction ;  one  or  two  were  out 
spoken  in  their  denunciation  of  the  whole  impeachment  pro 
ceedings  ;  and  it  was  perfectly  well  known  that  Mr.  Chase  never 
would  prostitute  his  judicial  office  to  the  help  of  any  partisan  en 
terprise.  The  impeaching  Senators  were  conscious  of  the  weak 
ness  of  their  cause,  and  they  did  not  want  it  made  still  weaker 
by  either  the  vote  or  the  example  of  the  Chief-Justice.  Hence, 
the  motive  to  deprive  him  of  any  voice  in  the  trial.  Indeed,  this 
apprehension  of  Mr.  Chase's  influence  was  carried  to  the  point  of 
seeking  to  deprive  the  Senate  of  the  character  of  a  court  at  all, 
which  was  persisted  in  by  some  Senators  to  the  last ;  and  of  try 
ing  to  establish  that  the  Yice-President,  filling  the  presidential 
office — the  President  being  removed  for  misdemeanor,  or  disabil 
ity,  or  dead — is  not  President,  but  a  mere  acting-President,  whose 
trial  upon  impeachment  might  proceed  in  the  Senate  without  the 
presence  of  the  Chief-Justice.  This  last  proposition,  however, 
was  early  found  to  be  untenable,  and  was  not  pressed ;  but  the 
resolution  to  deprive  the  Chief -Justice  of  a  vote,  even  in  the  case 
of  a  tie,  was  pressed  to  a  decision  after  the  Senate  was  organized 
and  sitting  as  a  court  of  impeachment.  But  I  anticipate. 


552  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

After  the  interview  with  Senators  Howard  and  Edmunds, 
Mr.  Chase  spent  the  whole  of  the  afternoon  and  evening  and  a 
part  of  the  next  day  in  an  examination  of  the  Constitution  and 
the  precedents  touching  upon  the  matter,  and  he  became  very 
doubtful  of  the  propriety  of  any  action  by  the  Senate  in  relation 
to  the  impeachment,  until  organized  as  a  court  of  impeachment, 
beyond  the  simple  receipt  of  the  notice  from  the  House  of  its 
purpose  to  impeach.  This  view  of  the  matter  became  so  strong 
in  his  mind  that  he  wrote  a  note  to  Mr.  Howard,  informing  that 
Senator  of  the  conclusion  at  which  he  had  arrived..  This  was  on 
Thursday,  the  27th  of  February.  But  he  received  no  reply. 

No  further  communication  passed  between  the  Chief -Justice 
and  the  members  of  the  committee.  It  proceeded  to  prepare 
rules,  and  the  Senate  proceeded  to  adopt  them,  in  its  legislative 
capacity.  Objection  was  made  by  Democratic  Senators  against 
the  constitutionality  of  this  action.  Mr.  Hendricks  said  he 
thought  the  Senate  in  its  legislative  capacity  had  no  right  to 
prescribe  rules  for  its  government  during  the  trial.  That  was  a 
function  for  the  court  of  impeachment  when  constitutionally  or 
ganized.  A  majority  of  the  members,  however,  did  not  agree 
with  Mr.  Hendricks. 

Mr.  Chase  watched  these  proceedings  with  a  good  deal  of 
anxiety — so  much,  indeed,  that  he  felt  called  upon  officially  to 
express  his  dissent.  He  did  this  in  a  letter  dated  the  4th  of 
March.  He  said,  in  that  letter,  that  when  the  Senate  sat  for  the 
trial  of  an  impeachment  it  sat  as  a  court,  seemed  unquestionable ; 
and  that  when  an  impeachment  of  the  President  was  tried,  the 
court  must  be  constituted  of  the  members  of  the  Senate  with 
the  Chief -Justice  presiding,  seemed  equally  unquestionable.  He 
thought  it  a  not  unwarranted  opinion,  therefore,  that  the  organ 
ization  of  the  Senate  as  a  court  of  impeachment,  under  the  Con 
stitution,  should  precede  the  actual  announcement  on  the  part  of 
the  House;  and  it  was  a  still  less  unwarranted  opinion  that 
articles  of  impeachment  should  be  presented  only  to  a  court  of 
impeachment,  and  that  no  summons  or  other  process  should  issue 
except  from  the  organized  court,  and  that  rules  for  the  govern 
ment  of  the  proceedings  of  such  a  court  should  be  formed  only 
by  the  court  itself.  The  receipt  of  this  letter  created  a  good 
deal  of  sensation  among  the  impeachment  Senators;  but  the 


RULES  OF  PROCEDURE.  553 

Senate  proceeded,  all  the  same,  to  receive  the  articles  of  impeach 
ment,  the  very  day  it  was  read ;  and  then  appointed  a  com 
mittee  of  three  Senators  to  wait  upon  the  Chief -Justice  and  give 
him  notice  of  the  trial,  and  request  his  attendance  as  presiding 
officer. 

The  trial  commenced  on  Thursday,  the  5th  of  March.  First, 
the  Chief -Justice  took  an  oath — administered  by  Associate-Jus 
tice  Nelson — "  that,  in  all  things  appertaining  to  the  trial  of  the 
impeachment  of  Andrew  Johnson,  President  of  the  United 
States,  now  pending,  I  will  do  impartial  justice  according  to  the 
Constitution  and  laws :  So  help  me  God."  The  same  oath  was 
then  administered  separately  to  each  of  the  Senators. 

On  the  next  day,  the  6th  of  March,  when  Mr.  Howard 
moved  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Senate  notify  the  House  that 
the  Senate  was  ready  to  proceed  with  the  trial,  the  Chief- 
Justice  interposed.  He  said  he  thought  it  his  duty  to  submit 
a  question  relative  to  the  rules  of  procedure.  In  his  judgment, 
he  said,  the  Senate  as  now  organized  was  a  distinct  body  from 
the  Senate  sitting  in  a  legislative  capacity,  and  he  conceived 
that  the  rules  adopted  by  the  Senate  on  the  2d  of  March  were 
not  rules  for  the  government  of  the  Senate  sitting  for  the  trial 
of  the  impeachment  of  the  President,  unless  also  adopted  by  the 
latter  body.  He  desired,  therefore,  to  take  the  sense  of  the 
Senate  upon  the  question.  Brought  face  to.  face  with  affir 
mation  or  abandonment  of  the  doctrine  that  the  Senate  was  not 
a  court  with  the -Chief -Justice  at  its  head,  the  doctrine  was  aban 
doned.  The  rules  were  adopted  as  the  rules  of  the  Senate  sit 
ting  for  the  trial  of  the  impeachment.  This  being  done,  the 
House  was  notified  of  the  readiness  of  the  Senate  to  proceed. 
The  notice  was  immediately  given,  and  the  managers  on  the 
part  of  the  House  of  Representatives  appeared  at  the  bar  of  the 
Senate ;  the  articles  of  impeachment  were  read,  and  a  summons 
was  directed  to  be  issued  and  served  upon  the  President,  return 
able  on  Friday,  ,the  13th  of  March,  at  one  o'clock  in  the  after 
noon.  On  the  13th  the  court  reassembled,  and  the  President 
appeared  by  counsel,  and  asked  forty  days  to  enable  him  to  put 
in  an  answer :  he'  was  allowed  ten  days.  On  the  23d  the  an 
swer  was  put  in;  on  the  24th  the  House  of  Representatives 
filed  its  replication,  and  the  formal  beginning  of  the  trial  was 


554  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

fixed  for  the  30th  of  March,  being  the  Monday  then  next  follow 
ing.  Accordingly,  the  trial  began  on  the  30th  of  March. 

It  happened  that  on  the  next  day  a  question  was  asked  by 
Manager  Butler  of  the  witness  Burleigh,  which  brought  up  a 
vital  question  touching  the  powers  of  the  Chief -Justice.  Mr. 
Stanbery,  of  counsel  for  the  President,  objected  to  Manager 
Butler's  question.  This  scene  then  took  place : 

The  Chief- Justice :  "  The  Chief -Justice  thinks  the  testimony 
is  competent,  and  it  will  be  heard  unless  the  Senate  thinks  other 
wise." 

Mr.  Senator  Drake  (pugnaciously) :  "  I  suppose,  sir,  that  the 
question  of  the  competency  of  evidence  in  this  court  is  a  matter 
to  be  determined  by  the  Senate,  and  not  by  the  presiding  officer 
of  the  court.  The  question  should  be  submitted,  I  think,  sir, 
to  the  Senate.  I  take  exception  to  the  presiding  officer  under 
taking  to  decide  a  point  of  that  kind." 

The  Chief -Justice :  "  The  Chief -Justice  is  of  opinion  that  it 
is  his  duty  to  decide  preliminarily  upon  objections  to  evidence. 
If  he  is  incorrect  in  that  opinion,  it  will  be  for  the  Senate  to  cor 
rect  him." 

Mr.  Senator  Drake  (pugnaciously  again) :  "  I  appeal,  sir, 
from  the  decision  of  the  chair,  and  demand  a  vote  of  the  Senate 
upon  the  question." 

Mr.  Senator  Fowler :  "  Mr.  Chief- Justice,  I  beg  to  know  what 
your  decision  is." 

The  Chief -Justice :  "  The  Chief -Justice  states  to  the  Senate 
that  in  his  judgment  it  is  his  duty  to  decide  upon  questions  of 
evidence  in  the  first  instance,  and  that  if  any  Senator  desires  that 
the  question  shall  then  be  submitted  to  the  Senate,  it  is  his  duty 
to  submit  it.  So  far  as  he  is  aware,  that  has  been  the  usual 
course  of  practice  in  trials  of  persons  impeached  in  the  House  of 
Lords  and  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States." 

Mr.  Senator  Drake:  "My  position,  Mr.  President,  is,  that 
there  is  nothing  in  the  rules  of  this  Senate  sitting  upon  the  trial 
of  an  impeachment  which  gives  that  authority  to  the  Chief -Jus 
tice  presiding  over  this  body." 

Mr.  Senator  Fessenden :  "  The  Senator  is  out  of  order.  ..." 
(Here  intervened  a  long  colloquy.) 

The  Chief -Justice :  "  The  Chief -Justice  will  state  the  case  for 


COLLOQUY  IN  THE  SENATE.  555 

the  consideration  of  the  Senate.  The  honorable  manager  put  a 
question  to  the  witness.  It  was  objected  to  on  the  part  of  the 
counsel  for  the  President.  The  Chief-Justice  is  of  opinion  that 
it  is  his  duty  to  express  his  judgment  upon  that  question,  sub 
ject  to  having  the  question  put,  upon  the  requisition  of  any  Sen 
ator,  to  the  Senate.  Are  you  ready  for  the  question  ? " 

Mr.  Senator  Grimes :  "  The  question  is,  whether  the  judg 
ment  of  the  Chief-Justice  shall  stand  as  the  judgment  of  the 
Senate?" 

The  Chief-Justice :  «  Yes,  sir." 

Mr.  Senator  Drake :  "  I  raise  the  question  that  the  presiding 
officer  of  the  Senate  had  no  right  to  make  a  decision  of  that 
question." 

The  Chief -Justice :  "  The  Senator  is  not  in  order." 

Mr.  Senator  Drake  (more  pugnaciously  than  before) :  "  I  wish 
that  question  put  to  the  Senate,  sir." 

The  Chief- Justice :  "  The  Senator  will  come  to  order." 

Mr.  Senator  Conkling:  "I  rise  for  information  from  the 
chair.  I  beg  to  inquire  whether  the  question  upon  which  the 
Senate  is  about  to  vote  is  whether  the  proposed  testimony  be 
competent  or  not ;  or,  whether  the  presiding  officer  be  compe 
tent  to  decide  that  question  or  not  ? " 

The  Chief- Justice :  "  It  is  the  last  question :  whether  the 
Chief-Justice  in  the  first  instance  may  state  his  judgment  upon 
such  a  question.  That  is  the  question  for  the  consideration  of 
the  Senate.  The  yeas  and  nays  will  be  called.  ..."  (Another 
long  colloquy.) 

Mr.  Senator  "Wilson :  "  I  move  that  the  Senate  retire  for  con 
sultation." 

Several  Senators  :  "  No,  no.  ..."     (Another  colloquy.) 

Mr.  Senator  Wilson :  "  I  renew  my  motion  that  the  Senate 
retire  for  consultation." 

Mr.  Senator  Thayer :  "  On  that  motion  I  call  for  the  yeas 
and  nays." 

Cameron :  "  I  hope  we  shall  not  retire." 

Several  Senators :  "  Debate  is  out  of  order." 

The  Chief -Justice :  "  The  Senator  is  out  of  order." 

Cameron :  "  Well,  I  only  say  that — " 

The  yeas  and  nays  were  called :  yeas  25,  nays  25. 


556  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

The  Chief- Justice :  "On  this  question  the  yeas  are  25  and 
the  nays  are  25.  The  Chief-Justice  votes  in  the  affirmative. 
The  Senate  will  retire  for  conference." 

It  had  been  the  intention  of  the  impeachment  Senators  to 
raise  the  question  of  the  right  of  the  Chief-Justice  to  vote  in 
any  case,  upon  the  first  occasion  upon  which  he  attempted  to  ex 
ercise  it.  But  the  suddenness  with  which  the  Chief -Justice  now 
'made  use  of  his  right,  and  the  grave  dignity  with  which  he  arose 
in  his  place  and  announced  the  result  of  it — and  the  promptness 
with  which  he  descended  from  his  seat  to  precede  the  Senators 
in  their  way  to  the  conference-room — utterly  confounded  the 
purpose,  and  his  action  was,  for  the  time,  acquiesced  in  withoiit 
a  protest. 

"When  they  had  arrived  in  the  conference-room,  in  the  course 
of  the  consultation,  Mr.  Henderson  submitted  a  resolution,  which 
Mr.  Sumner  proposed  to  amend  by  striking  out  all  after  the 
word  "  Resolved, "  and  inserting :  "  That  the  Chief -Justice  of 
the  United  States,  presiding  in  the  Senate  on  the  trial  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  is  not  a  member  of  the  Senate, 
and  has  no 'authority,  under  the  Constitution,  to  vote  on  any 
question  during  the  trial,  and  he  can  pronounce  decision  only  as 
the  organ  of  the  Senate,  with  its  assent. "  This  was  defeated 
by  22  yeas  to  26  nays.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Sumner  submitted  the  following  resolution  :  "  That  the 
Chief-Justice  of  the  United  States,  presiding  in  the  Senate  on 
the  trial  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  is  not  a  member 
of  the  Senate,  and  has  no  authority  to  vote  on  any  question 
during  the  trial. " 

Mr.  Hendricks  objected  to  this  as  not  relating  to  the  matter 
on  which  the  Senate  had  retired  to  confer,  and  moved  to  return 
to  the  Senate-chamber,  which  was  agreed  to  at  eighteen  minutes 
before  six.  .  .  . 

At  half-past  six  the  court  adjourned. 

On  the  next  day,  immediately  after  the  reading  of  the  min 
utes,  Mr.  Sumner  in  the  open  court  proposed  what  he  said  was 
"  an  order  in  the  nature  of  a  correction  of  the  journal."  His 
order  ran  thus :  "  It  appearing  from  the  reading  of  the  journal 
of  yesterday  that  on  a  question  where  the  Senators  were  equally 
divided,  the  Chief-Justice,  presiding  on  the  trial  of  the  Presi- 


POWERS  OF  THE  CHIEF- JUSTICE.  557 

dent,  gave  a  casting  vote,  it  is  hereby  declared  that,  in  the  judg 
ment  of  the  Senate,  such  vote  was  without  authority  under  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States."  The  yeas  and  nays  being 
ordered,  the  result  was — yeas  21,  nays  27. 

The  rule  actually  adopted  neither  affirmed  nor  denied  the 
right  of  the  Chief -Justice  to  vote  in  any  case,  but  left  that  ques 
tion  untouched ;  though  it  empowered  him  to  rule  all  questions 
of  evidence  and  incidental  questions,  which  ruling  was  to  stand 
as  the  judgment  of  the  Senate  unless  some  member  should  ask 
a  formal  vote  to  be  taken  upon  it,  in  which  case  it  was  to  be 
submitted  to  the  Senate  for  decision,  or  he  might  submit  the 
question  in  the  first  instance,  upon  his  own  option. 

The  extent  of  the  powers  of  the  Chief -Justice  as  presiding 
officer  of  the  Senate,  during  the  trial  of  an  impeachment  of  the 
President,  was — both  in  the  Senate  and  out  of  it — very  ear 
nestly  discussed  during  this  time.  It  was  held  by  some  that  it 
was  the  duty  of  the  Chief-Justice  to  determine  all  questions  of 
law  and  competency  of  evidence  arising  during  the  trial,  and 
that  there  could  be  no  appeal  from  his  judgment.  The  oppo 
site  view  was  the  doctrine  of  Mr.  Sunmer,  that  the  Chief-Jus 
tice  had  no  powers  which  were  not  conferred  by  the  Senate. 
Mr.  Chase  believed  in  neither  of  these  extremes ;  but  he  be 
lieved  firmly  in  his  right  to  a  casting  vote ;  and  it  is  certain 
that,  had  it  been  denied  to  him,  he  would  have  refused  further 
participation  in  the  trial. 

These  defeats  upon  preliminary  questions  excited  the  appre 
hensions  of  the  impeaching  Senators  as  to  the  final  issue  of  the 
trial.  They  indicated  some  weakening  of  party  fealty  and  disci 
pline  on  the  part  of  some  Republican  Senators.  Even  before 
the  trial  began,  it  was  proclaimed  everywhere  that  the  con 
viction  of  the  President  was  indispensable  to  save  the  "life 
of  the  nation ; "  Republican  journals  and  partisans  caught  up 
the  cry,  and  a  judicial  proceeding  of  transcendent  interest  and 
importance,  which  ought  to  have  been  free  from  all  external 
excitement  or  interference,  was  transformed  into  a  party  meas 
ure.  The  General  of  the  Army  took  public  ground  in  favor 
of  conviction.  Every  appliance  likely  to  effect  it  was  prompt 
ly  put  into  operation ;  and  hesitating  Senators  —  astounded 
and  overwhelmed  by  the  storm — yielded,  against  the  solemn 


558  MFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

convictions  both  of  judgment  and  of  conscience.  Some  few 
held  out  to  the  end,  and  these  were  threatened  with  infamy. 
It  was  upon  the  head  of  the  Chief-Justice,  however,  that  the 
torrent  of  invective  was  poured  with  peculiar  fury.  He  was 
assailed  with  extraordinary  bitterness  and  persistence.  His 
house  was  subjected  to  systematic  espionage.  'No  mail  came  to 
Washington  which  did  not  bring  him  threatening  letters.  But 
in  the  midst  of  that  tempest  of  lies  and  outrage,  the  great  Chief- 
Justice,  with  unfailing  patience,  pursued  his  calm  and  steadfast 
way.  With  never-faltering  hands  he  supported  the  dignity  of 
his  office  and  the  impartiality  of  the  law.  He  did  not  doubt 
that,  with  the  subsidence  of  the  passions  of  the  hour,  his  coun 
trymen  would  vindicate  him  against  his  enemies  and  accusers. 
And  it  was  so.  Even  Charles  Sumner,  though  he  loved  justice 
and  truth,  in  the  heat  and  frenzy  of  the  time  had  said  "  Alas, 
poor  Chase !  "  But  Charles  Sumner  lived  to  say  that  Mr. 
Chase's  conduct  during  that  trial  was  one  of  his  noblest  titles  to 
fame. 

The  end  of  the  trial  was  reached  at  last.  The  testimony  in 
the  case  was  closed  on  the  20th  of  April,  and  the  arguments  of 
counsel  began  on  the  22d,  and  were  closed  on  the  6th  of  May. 
Then  the  Senators  proceeded  to  deliberate  and  to  the  delivery 
of  opinions  pro  and  con  upon  the  matter  of  conviction,  but  it 
was  not  until  the  16th  of  May  that  a  vote  was  reached.  In  the 
interval  between  the  6th  and  the  16th  of  May,  during  which 
time  the  final  result  came  to  be  pretty  accurately  measured, 
and  was  found  to  depend  most  probably  upon  a  single  vote, 
the  excitement  reached  its  highest  point.  It  was  known  that 
Henderson,  of  Missouri,  had  expressed  himself  against  eight  of 
the  eleven  articles ;  his  views  were  unknown  upon  any  one  of 
the  remaining  three.  Every  effort  of  inducement  and  abuse 
was  brought  to  bear  upon  him ;  it  illustrated  the  common  de 
moralization  and  indifference  to  the  sanctity  of  a  judicial  oath, 
that  the  Congressmen  of  his  own  party  from  the  State  of  Mis 
souri,  waited  upon  him  in  a  body  to  urge  him  to  vote  for  con 
viction  !  He  did  not  yield,  however,  but  voted  against  convic 
tion  upon  every  article  upon  which  a  vote  was  taken. 

The  last  article — that  upon  which  it  was  supposed  the  most 
votes  in  favor  of  conviction  could  be  concentrated — was  voted 


THE  END  OF  IMPEACHMENT.  559 

upon  first.  This  was  on  the  16th  of  May.  A  vast  audience  had 
congregated  in  the  Senate-chamber.  Two  Senators  were  pres 
ent  whose  health  was  such  that  their  lives  were  imperilled  by 
coming.  And  then  happened  a  prodigious  thing :  a  Senator  who 
expected  to  occupy  the  presidential  office  if  the  President  was 
removed,  voted  for  the  President's  conviction !  It  is  not  sur 
prising  that  the  silence  of  awe  took  possession  of  the  dense  as 
semblage  as  that  Senator's  name  was  called. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  prolong  the  narrative.  Thirty-five  Sena 
tors  voted  guilty,  and  nineteen  voted  not  guilty ;  and  the  Chief- 
Justice  said,  "  Two-thirds  of  the  Senators  not  having  pro 
nounced  guilty,  the  President  is  acquitted  upon  the  eleventh 
article."  Under  the  impulse  of  a  profound  disappointment  the 
Senate  adjourned  for  ten  days.1  Much  dragooning  might  be 
done  in  ten  days.  But  the  tenth  day  arrived  without  any  acces 
sion  of  strength ;  the  court  of  impeachment  reassembled ;  the 
first  and  second  articles  were  voted  upon,  with  the  same  result 
as  before — thirty-five  Senators  voting  guilty,  and  nineteen  not 
guilty.  And  then  the  court  adjourned  without  day.  Mr. 
Stanton  immediately  resigned  office  as  Secretary  of  War  and 
General  Schofield  was  appointed,  and,  notwithstanding  fearful 
prognostications  of  disaster  and  civil  and  political  commotion, 
no  evil  results  followed  the  acquittal ;  and  experience  proved, 
what  good  sense  had  already  foreseen,  that  the  political  institu 
tions  of  the  country  were  as  little  in  the  power  of  Mr.  Johnson 
to  destroy  as  in  that  of  Mr.  Stanton  to  save. 

1  The  night  before  this  vote  was  taken,  a  meeting  of  impeaching  Senators  and 
others  was  held  at  the  house  of  Senator  Pomeroy,  and  Mr.  Wade's  "  Cabinet "  was 
there  agreed  upon ;  in  the  full  expectation  that  in  twenty-four  hours  Mr.  Wade's 
Administration  would  be  inaugurated.  At  this  time  the  "  impeachers  "  were  very 
confident  of  success,  though  it  was  known  that  the  vote  would  be  close.  They  be 
lieved  that  there  were  one  or  two  Senators  .regarded  as  doubtful,  who  would  not  dare 
to  flinch  in  the  supreme  hour  of  the  trial. 


CHAPTEE   L. 

THE  "CHASE  MOVEMENT"  AMONG  THE  DEMOCRATS  IN  1868 — THE  FIT 
NESS   OF  THAT  MOVEMENT ITS  SPONTANEOTJSNESS LETTER  TO 

ME.  BELMONT — ADVOCACY  BY  THE  HERALD  OF  ME.  CHASE 

FRIENDS  OF  ME.  CHASE  IN  THE  NEW  YORK  CONVENTION — THE 

PLATFORM — A  HALF-VOTE  FOR  MR.   CHASE EXCITEMENT 

NOMINATION  OF   GOVERNOR  SEYMOUR HOW  MR.  CHASE  RE 
CEIVED    THE    NEWS PARTISAN     MISREPRESENTATION MR. 

CHASE'S  VIEWS — A  LETTER  OF  GOVERNOR  SEYMOUR. 

I!N"  the  summer  of  1867,  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Chase  in  1868, 
as  the  Bepublican  candidate  for  President,  seemed  an  event 
likely  to  happen ;  and  no  doubt  a  large  body  of  Republicans, 
perhaps  a  majority  of  all,  would  then  have  preferred  him  to  any 
other  leader.  But  the  same  causes  which  operated  to  bring  about 
the  impeachment  of  Andrew  Johnson  were  potent  in  making 
party  sentiment  in  favor  of  General  Grant ;  and  this  was  neither 
a  surprise  nor  a  disappointment  to  Mr.  Chase.  He  knew  as  little 
as  any  one  of  General  Grant's  political  opinions,  but  he  had  seen 
and  admired  the  patient  and  persistent  energy  with  which  that 
General  had  prosecuted  the  war ;  his  administration  of  the  duties 
of  his  office  as  General  of  the  Army  was  marked  by  good  sense 
and  regard  for  law ;  and  he  was  as  likely  to  make  a  safe  and 
successful  President  as  any  other  purely  military  man ;  and  Mr. 
Chase  knew  that  the  nomination  of  a  military  man  by  the  Bepub 
lican  party  had  become  necessary  and  inevitable  ;  besides  which, 
there  were  new  watchwords  among  Bepublican  leaders  which  he 
could  not  bring  himself  to  adopt,  though,  under  the  circum 
stances  in  which  he  was  placed,  he  was  not  in  a  position  where  he 
could  repudiate  without  great  misrepresentation  of  his  motives. 


MR.  CHASE  AND  THE  DEMOCRATS.  561 

But  he  observed  with  astonishment,  and  with  gratification 
also,  the  rapid  development  among  Democrats  of  a  strong  party 
in  favor  of  placing  him  before  the  country  as  the  Democratic 
candidate ;  not,  indeed,  that  he  seriously  expected  such  a  thing 
to  happen,  but  because  it  indicated  progress  in  the  right  direction ; 
toward  the  practical  application,  by  the  Democratic  party,  of 
democratic  principles  in  their  relation  to  the  newly-enfranchised 
people  of  the  South. 

This  sudden  and  rapid  development  of  a  "  Chase  movement " 
among  Democrats  has  been  described  as  extraordinary  and 
phenomenal.  In  one  aspect  it  was  so,  and  in  another  nothing 
was  more  natural.  It  was  true  that  for  long  years  Mr.  Chase 
had  been  a  distinguished  leader  in  the  antislavery  movement : 
he  had  been  far  more  instrumental  in  bringing  about  slave 
emancipation  than  any  other  member  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Ad 
ministration,  and  was,  at  this  very  time,  the  conspicuous,  inflexi 
ble  advocate  of  universal  suffrage.  In  all  this,  however,  there 
was  nothing  undemocratic,  but  rather  the  perfect  application  of 
Democratic  principles.  It  was  undeniably  true,  however,  that 
the  action  of  the  party  had  been  on  the  side  of  slavery.  This 
was  not  because  Democrats  approved  the  slave-system  as  a  moral 
or  political  good ;  but  because,  in  the  formation  of  Federal  in 
stitutions,  it  had  been  necessary  to  accord  to  slavery  certain 
political  immunities  and  privileges.  The  Democracy  believed 
these  to  be  fundamental  in  the  constitution  of  the  Union.  They 
believed  them  to  be  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  the  Con 
stitution  and  the  Union.  And  in  these  sentiments  the  whole 
country  participated,  if  we  except  the  "Independent  Democ 
racy,"  that  small  body  of  apparent  impracticables,  who  insist 
ed  upon  the  exclusion  of  slavery  from  all  places  within  the 
national  jurisdiction.  Of  this  organization,  Mr.  Chase,  from  its 
inception,  had  been  the  leading  member.  Except  upon  the  sub 
ject  of  slavery,  its  principles  were  substantially  those  of  the  Old- 
line  Democracy ;  and  in  1849  no  great  difficulty  had  been  ex 
perienced,  therefore,  in  bringing  the  Old  Line  and  the  Indepen 
dent  Democrats  together,  to  secure  Mr.  Chase's  election  to  the 
United  States  Senate.  He  was  known  to  be  "sound"  in  many 
respects  ;  to  be  a  friend  of  State-rights,  of  personal  liberty,  and 
freedom  of  the  press,  of  the  subordination  of  the  military  to  the 
86 


562  LIFE  OP  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

civil  authority,  and  of  that  method  of  constitutional  construction 
which  had  long  been  a  watchword  of  the  Democratic  party. 
His  conduct  during  the  impeachment  trial  had  been  so  pre 
eminently  upright  and  impartial  that  Democrats  hailed  it  as  a 
revival  of  the  reign  of  law.  He  had  exhibited  during  that  time, 
too,  that  sort  of  lofty  courage  which  naturally  excites  admiration 
and  sympathy.  There  seems  to  have  been  a  genuine  fitness, 
therefore,  that  in  the  absence  of  a  probably-successful  leader  of 
their  own,  Mr.  Chase  should  be  canvassed  by  the  Democracy. 

Certain  it  is,  at  any  rate,  that  early  in  1868,  his  name  was 
freely  discussed,  and  as  the  time  approached  for  the  meeting  of 
the  Democratic  National  Convention,  leading  Democrats  every 
where  turned  their  thoughts  upon  the  Chief-Justice  as  a  fit  and 
available  leader,  while  the  same  sentiment,  found  a  deep,  spon 
taneous  lodgment  in  the  hearts  of  multitudes  of  the  rank  and 
file,  and  stirred  the  party  to  its  depths.  It  excited  among 
Republican  leaders  a  great  anxiety.  They  knew  that  the  im 
peachment  outrages  had  not  met  the  approval,  nor  debauched 
the  minds  of  the  whole  party ;  that  Mr.  Chase  was  still  held  in 
honor  and  veneration  by  a  large  minority  within  the  Republican 
ranks,  and  that  the  scandalous  assaults  made  upon  him  had 
rather  increased  than  diminished  these  sentiments.  Mr.  Chase 
had  gratifying  proofs  of  this.  Letters  came  to  him  from  in 
fluential  Republicans  in  all  the  States,  assuring  him  of  continued 
confidence,  and  of  support  should  he  be  nominated  even  by  a 
Democratic  convention.  And,  indeed,  as  the  time  for  the  as 
sembling  of  the  convention  drew  nearer,  what  had  been  possi 
bility  of  nomination  seemed  to  be  gradually  assuming  the  char 
acter  of  a  probability. 

But  all  this  was  spontaneous,  and  went  on  without  the  agency 
of  Mr.  Chase,  or  Mr.  Chase's  personal  or  political  friends.  Pre 
ceding  the  day  upon  which  the  convention  met — July  4th — there 
was  but  little  communication  between  himself,  or  any  of  his 
friends,  and  Democratic  leaders.  He  was  visited  by  Alexander 
Long,  of  Ohio,  noted  as  a  radical  Democrat  during  the  war ;  and 
by  Dr.  Pierce,  a  brother-in-law  of  Senator  Hendricks,  of  Indiana, 
who  was  a  conspicuous  candidate  for  the  nomination;  and  by 
Colonel  John  D.  Yan  Buren,  of  New  York  City,  recognized  as 
a  confidential  friend  of  Horatio  Seymour ;  and,  possibly,  by  two 


MR.  CHASE  ON  SUFFRAGE.  563 

or  three  others.  But  none  of  these  gentlemen  had  authority  to 
speak  for  any  other  persons  than  themselves,  nor  did  they  pro 
fess  to  have.  An  interview  was  arranged  between  Mr.  Chase  and 
Mr.  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  a  leading  Democrat  of  New -York,  which, 
however,  did  not  take  place.  But  the  chairman  of  the  Demo 
cratic  National  Committee,  Mr.  August  Belmont,  in  the  last  week 
in  May,  addressed  Mr.  Chase  a  letter,  marked  "  private  and  con 
fidential,"  and  written,  that  gentleman  said,  without  consultation 
with  anybody,  but  after  being  satisfied  that  most  of  the  leading 
Democrats  of  New  York  were  favorable  to  Mr.  Chase's  nomina 
tion.  To  that  letter,  on  the  30th  of  May,  Mr.  Chase  made  an 
swer.  "  The  slavery  question,"  he  said,  "  is,  as  you  say,  settled. 
It  has  received  a  terrible  solution ;  but  it  has  a  successor,  in  the 
question  of  reconstruction,  and  this  question  partakes  largely  of 
the  nature  of  that.  I  never  favored  interference  by  Congress 
with  slavery  in  the  States ;  but,  as  a  war  measure,  Mr.  Lincoln's 
proclamation  of  emancipation  had  my  hearty  assent,  and  I  united, 
as  a  member  of  his  Administration,  in  the  pledge  it  made  to  main 
tain  the  freedom  of  the  enfranchised  people.  This  pledge  has 
been  partly  redeemed  ly  the  constitutional  amendment  prohibit 
ing  slavery  throughout  tJie  United  States  /  lut  its  perfect  fulfill 
ment  requires,  in  my  judgment,  the  assurance  of  the  right  of 
suffrage  to  those  whom  tJie  Constitution  has  made  freemen  and 
citizens.  Hence,  I  have  ~been  and  am  in  favor  of  so  much  of  the 
reconstruction  policy  of  Congress  as  "bases  the  reorganization  of 
the  State  governments  in  the  South  upon  universal  suffrage" 
This  was  the  vital  point,  and  Mr.  Chase  did  not  shirk  nor  evade 
it ;  but  met  it  honestly  and  fairly,  and  left  no  room  for  doubt  or 
misapprehension.  But  it  diminished  the  likelihood  of  his  nomi 
nation,  and  he  was  inflexible  in  his  resolution  to  make  no  con 
cession.  The  Democrats  admitted  the  utter  extinction  of  slavery, 
but  they  were  unwilling  to  admit  the  logical  consequences  of  its 
extinction,  by  the  application  of  their  own  principles,  and  pre 
ferred  to  resist  a  revolution  as  certain  and  resistless  as  fate  itself ! 
The  convention  assembled  in  the  city  of  New  York,  on  the 
4th  of  July.  If  the  friends  of  Mr.  Chase  had  been  left  free  to 
choose  the  place  of  its  meeting,  with  a  view  to  "outside  press 
ure,"  they  would  have  chosen  New  York.  The  public  senti 
ment  of  that  city  was  overwhelmingly  in  his  favor.  It  was  not 


564  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

noisy  and  demonstrative,  but  was  everywhere  apparent,  and  was 
largely  owing  to  the  powerful  and  persistent  advocacy  of  his 
name  by  the  Merald.  For  months,  that  paper  had  urged  the 
nomination ;  and  if  the  World  did  not  approve,  it  was  not  hos 
tile  ;  while  the  Tribune  held  silence,  and,  some  said,  would  sup 
port  Mr.  Chase  if  chosen  by  the  convention.  This  might  or 
might  not  have  happened — I  know  not. 

Immediately  upon  the  assembling  of  the  convention,  it  was 
found  that  there  was  a  considerable  number  of  delegates  whose 
first  choice  was  the  Chief -Justice.  They  made  constant  acces 
sions,  but  there  was  no  organization  among  them,  and  no  leader. 
The  evening  before  the  nomination  of  Governor  Seymour,  they 
held  a  meeting,  which  was  wholly  informal ;  but  enough  was  as 
certained,  during  its  sitting,  to  leave  little  doubt  that,  with  organ 
ization  and  leadership,  he  would  have,  in  the  convention,  if  not  the 
necessary  two-thirds,  at  any  rate  a  powerful  body  of  supporters. 
It  was  unexpectedly  developed  that  Mr.  Chase  had  a  greater  or 
less  number  of  friends  in  almost  every  delegation.  A  majority 
of  the  New  England  delegates  were  for  him ;  the  New  York  dele 
gation,  by  formal  vote,  agreed  upon  his  support  in  the  conven 
tion,  under  certain  circumstances,  very  likely  to  arise ;  he  had  a 
majority  in  two  or  three  of  the  Western  delegations,  and  friends 
in  every  one.  The  strongest  opposition  came  from  Ohio,  and 
this  was  due,  in  about  equal  parts,  to  earnest  desire  for  the  nom 
ination  of  Mr.  Pendleton,  and  to  recollections  of  past  political 
battles,  with  Mr.  Chase  as  the  leader  of  their  victorious  enemies. 
The  delegates  from  the  Southern  States,  it  was  understood,  would 
support  any  candidate  thought,  by  the  convention,  most  likely  to 
carry  the  North,  though  even  some  of  these  were,  in  the  first  in 
stance,  for  the  Chief-Justice.  On  the  other  hand,  some  Southern 
men  were  bitter  against  him. 

The  first  day  of  the  convention — Saturday — was  spent  in  the 
usual  preliminary  proceedings.  On  Monday,  the  6th  of  July,  a 
permanent  organization  was  effected ;  and  ex-Governor  Horatio 
Seymour,  believed  to  be  friendly  to  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Chase, 
was  elected  permanent  president.  This  was  accepted  as  a  favor 
able  indication.  In  the  afternoon  of  the  third  day,  the  platform 
was  presented  and  adopted.  A  great  deal  that  was  politically 
sound  was  affirmed  in  it,  and  a  great  deal  that  was  capable  of 


SCOTT'S  YOTE  FOR  MR.  CHASE.  565 

misrepresentation  and  misconstruction  was  affirmed  also ;  closing 
up  with  a  vote  of  thanks  for  President  Johnson,  and  an  appeal 
to  every  patriot,  "  including  all  the  conservative  element,  and  all 
who  desire  to  support  the  Constitution  and  restore  the  Union," 
to  unite  with  the  Democratic  party,  in  "  the  great  struggle  for 
the  liberties  of  the  people ; "  and  to  all  such,  no  matter  to  what 
party  they  had  before  belonged,  the  "right  hand  of  fellowship" 
was  extended,  and  they  were  to  be  called  "  friends  and  brethren  " 
—which  was  not  a  very  powerful  inducement  to  cooperation,  as 
events  proved.  An  imperfect  transcript  of  the  platform  was 
telegraphed  to  Mr.  Chase,  and  he  answered  back  that  he  could 
give  no  opinion  till  he  saw  it  all ;  but  that  what  he  had  received 
did  not  seem  to  be  objectionable. 

On  the  fourth  day  (Wednesday)  the  balloting  began.  Mr. 
Chase's  name  was  not  presented.  Pendleton,  of  Ohio,  had  105 
votes  ;  Andrew  Johnson  had  65  ;  General  Hancock  33 \ ;  San- 
ford  E.  Church,  of  New  York,  33 ;  and  the  remainder  were  cast 
for  several  different  gentlemen.  Mr.  Pendleton  gathered 
strength  up  to  the  eighth  ballot,  wrhen  he  received  156£  votes ; 
less  than  one-half  the  convention  (the  whole  vote  was  317),  and 
it  became  clear  that  his  nomination  was  not  possible.  Meantime 
the  sentiment  grew  outside,  as  no  mention  was  made  of  Mr. 
Chase,  that  his  name  was  being  held  in  abeyance  for  a  favorable 
conjuncture ;  when,  upon  presentation,  he  would  be  nominated 
by  acclamation.  But  of  course  this  was  a  mistake.  On  the 
afternoon  of  the  fifth  day  of  the  convention,  and  the  second  day 
of  the  balloting,  a  delegate  from  California — Scott  by  name — 
suddenly  and  unexpectedly  cast  a  half -vote  for  "  Chief -Justice 
Salmon  P.  Chase."  The  effect  upon  the  dense  audience  assem 
bled  in  attendance  upon  the  proceedings,  was  as  sudden  and  un 
expected  as  the  half-vote  itself.  Mr.  Chase's  name  was  received 
with  a  burst  of  enthusiasm  spontaneous  and  universal.  A  scene 
of  delirious  excitement,  which  lasted  unremittingly  for  ten  min 
utes,  suspended  the  action  of  the  convention.  Men  and  women 
joined  in  it ;  the  multitude  outside,  apprised  of  the  cause  of  the 
demonstration  within,  caught  the  inspiration  of  the  theme,  and 
added  their  voices  to  the  general  applause.  It  was  a  strange  and 
extraordinary  occurrence ;  and  thoroughly  bewildering  to  most 
of  the  members  of  the  convention. 


566  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Under  the  influence  of  the  excitement  it  occasioned,  the  con 
vention  took  a  brief  recess  ;  but  in  the  absence  of  an  organized 
movement  among  the  delegates  favorable  to  Mr.  Chase,  the 
golden  opportunity  for  his  nomination  was  not  improved. 

Scott,  of  California,  on  two  or  three  subsequent  ballots  again 
voted  for  Mr.tChase ;  and  on  the  twenty-first  and  final  ballot  he 
had  four  votes.  In  the  midst  of  it  the  name  of  Governor  Sey 
mour  was  suddenly  proposed  by  the  Ohio  delegation,  and  he  was 
nominated  by  acclamation.  There  was  great  enthusiasm  in  the 
convention,  of  course ;  after  some  days  Governor  Seymour  ac 
cepted  with  extreme  reluctance,  and  made  as  good  a  canvass — 
perhaps  better  than  any  other  "  straight "  Democrat  could  have 
done.  But  from  the  beginning  the  election  of  a  "straight" 
Democrat  was  impossible. 

The  result  of  the  convention  was  quite  expected  by  Mr. 
Chase,  for  though  he  had  thought  his  nomination  possible,  he 
had  not  thought  it  probable.  "When  the  news  came,  he  was  en 
gaged  at  a  game  of  "croquet"  with  his  old  friend  George 
Wood,  a  clerk  in  the  Treasury  Department.  He  read  the  tele 
gram  ;  handed  it  to  Mr.  Wood,  who  read  it  also,  and  then  Mr. 
Chase  continued  his  play — he  was  very  fond  of  this  simple  game 
— undisturbed  by  disappointment  or  anxiety. 

There  was  of  course  a  great  deal  of  partisan  misrepresentation 
of  Mr.  Chase's  connection  with  this  movement.  He  was  charged 
with  an  abandonment  of  principles  and  a  willingness  to  accept 
the  Democratic  nomination  upon  any  terms  and  upon  any  plat 
form.  Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  truth.  Mr.  Chase 
did  not  seek  the  nomination.  He  made  no  concession  of  any 
kind,  and  was  asked  to  make  none.  His  strength  lay  in  his  prin 
ciples  and  in  the  certainty  that  he  would  adhere  to  them,  and 
that  they  would  be  the  basis  of  his  administrative  action,  if  he 
were  called  upon  to  act.  On  his  part,  Mr.  Chase  believed  that 
if  the  Democratic  party  would  commit  itself  in  good  faith  to  the 
doctrine  of  universal  suffrage,  and  make  nominations  consistent 
with  the  doctrine,  it  could  hardly  fail  of  success  before  the  peo 
ple,  and  that,  for  many  and  obvious  reasons,  a  Democratic  Ad- 
.ministration,  better  than  one  in  opposition,  could  effect  a  rapid 
reconstruction  of  the  Union  upon  safe  and  enduring  founda 
tions.  In  this  he  might,  of  course,  have  been  mistaken. 


MR.  CHASE'S  PLATFORM.  567 

He  left  no  ground  for  misunderstanding  on  the  part  of  Dem 
ocrats  desiring  his  nomination.  Shortly  before  the  meeting  of 
the  convention  he  prepared  a  statement  of  his  views,  which  was 
not  only  in  harmony  with  his  own  antecedents,  but  were  such  as 
a  Democratic  convention  might  adopt  in  perfect  consistency  with 
Democratic  principles  ;  and  it  is  quite  likely  that  their  adoption 
would  have  realized  "  his  desire  to  see  .the  Democratic  party  meet 
ing  the  questions  of  the  day  in  the  spirit  of  the  day,  and  assuring 
to  itself  a  long  duration  of  ascendency."  It  will  be  observed 
that  in  neither  of  the  propositions  in  this  statement  is  any  opin 
ion  expressed  concerning  the  permanence  of  the  new  govern 
ments  established  in  the  South  under  the  reconstruction  laws, 
or  of  the  liability  of  those  governments  to  modification  and  alter 
ation  in  the  modes  prescribed  by  the  new  constitutions.  The 
reason  is,  that  Mr.  Chase  had  no  expectation  that  any  question 
would  be  made  by  any  party  upon  the  validity  or  alterability  of 
those  constitutions,  whatever  might  be  the  difference  of  opinion 
in  relation  to  the  measures  in  which  they  had  their  origin. 
This  statement  was  printed,  the  first  part  of  it  in  June,  and  the 
last  some  time  early  in  July,  1868,  and  was  found  to  be  entirely 
acceptable  to  a  large  number  of  distinguished  Democrats  both 
in  and  out  of  the  convention.  It  was  as  follows : 

"  I.  1.  Universal  suffrage  is  a  democratic  principle,  the  application  of 
which  is  to  be  left,  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  to  the 
States  themselves;  and  universal  amnesty  and  complete  removal  of  all 
disabilities  on  account  of  participation  in  the  late  rebellion,  are  not  only 
wise  and  just  measures  of  public  policy,  but  essentially  necessary  to  the 
beneficial  administration  of  government  in  the  States  recently  involved  in 
civil  war  with  the  United  States,  and  to  the  full  and  satisfactory  regstab- 
lishment  of  the  practical  relations  of  those  States  with  the  other  States  of 
the  American  Union. 

"  2.  No  military  government  over  any  State  of  the  Union,  in  time  of 
peace,  is  compatible  with  the  principles  of  civil  liberty  established  by  the 
Constitution;  nor  can  the  trial  of  private  citizens  by  military  commis 
sions  be  tolerated  by  a  people  jealous  of  their  freedom  and  desiring  to  be 
free. 

"  3.  Taxes  should  be  reduced  as  far  as  practicable,  collected  impar 
tially  and  with  strict  economy,  and  so  apportioned  as  to  bear  on  wealth 
rather  than  on  labor ;  and,  while  all  national  obligations  should  be  hon 
estly  and  exactly  fulfilled,  no  special  privileges  should  be  allowed  to  any 
classes  of  individuals  or  corporations. 


568  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

"  II.  1.  The  American  Democracy,  reposing  their  trust,  under  God,  in 
the  •intelligence,  the  patriotism,  and  the  discriminating  justice  of  the 
American  people,  declare  their  fixed  adhesion  to  the  great  principles  of 
equal  rights  and  exact  justice  for  all  men  and  all  States,  and  their  purpose 
to  apply  them,  within  constitutional  limits,  to  all  questions  which,  in  the 
varying  exigencies  of  public  affairs,  may  demand  consideration  and  solu 
tion. 

"  2.  We  congratulate  each  other  and  the  whole  people  upon  the  aus 
picious  return  of  peace  after  protracted  civil  war,  and,  offering  our  most 
earnest  thanks  to  the  brave  soldiers  of  the  Union,  whose  heroic  courage, 
patient  endurance,  and  self-sacrificing  patriotism,  have  preserved  for  us  an 
undivided  country,  we  discard  from  our  hearts  every  sentiment,  save  good 
will,  toward  those  who,  having  been  brave  enemies  in  war,  now  return  to 
their  duties  as  citizens  of  the  United  States.  We  welcome  them  to  a  noble 
rivalry  in  earnest  efforts  to  surpass  each  other  in  mutual  affection  and  com 
mon  devotion  to  that  Union  whose  symbol  once  more  floats  in  glory  and 
honor  over  all  our  land. 

"  3.  That  slavery,  having  perished  by  the  war,  and  being  now  pro 
hibited  by  an  amendment  of  the  national  Constitution,  neither  can  nor 
ought  to  be  restored ;  while  a  wise  regard  to  the  altered  circumstances  of 
the  country,  and  impartial  j  ustice  to  the  millions  who  have  been  enfran 
chised,  demand  the  adoption  of  proper  constitutional  measures  for  the  pro 
tection,  improvement,  and  elevation  of  this  portion  of  the  American  people. 

"  4.  That,  in  a  land  of  democratic  institutions,  all  public  and  private 
interests  repose  most  securely  on  the  broadest  basis  of  suffrage  ;  but,  under 
the  system  of  distinct  though  united  States,  which  distinguishes  our 
American  Government  from  the  consolidated  governments  of  the  Old 
World,  both  wisdom  and  duty  require  that  the  application  of  this  prin 
ciple  be  left  in  the  several  States,  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  to  the  people  of  each  State,  without  interference  by  the  national 
Government. 

"  5.  That  public  security  is  endangered,  and  the  public  prosperity  ar 
rested,  by  the  unwise  and  unjust  disfranchisement  imposed  on  the  people 
of  the  Southern  States  by  recent  legislation ;  the  best  guarantees  of  per 
fect  peace,  increasing  wealth,  and  beneficent  government  in  those  States 
will  be  found  in  complete  and  universal  amnesty,  and  the  speediest  pos 
sible  removal  of  all  civil  and  political  disabilities. 

"  6.  That  we  have  observed  with  alarm  the  growing  tendency  to  the 
centralization  and  consolidation  of  all  the  powers  of  the  national  Govern 
ment  in  the  legislative  department,  and  are  constrained  to  oppose  to  it  a 
determined  resistance.  It  is  of  the  first  importance  that  every  department 
of  the  Government,  whether  legislative,  judicial,  or  executive,  be  main 
tained  in  its  full  constitutional  authority,  without  encroachment  by  either 
upon  the  other.  Unconstitutional  and  usurped  control  of  the  other  de 
partments  by  the  Legislature  must  result  not  only  in  the  destruction  of 


MR.  CHASE'S  PLATFORM.  569 

the  checks  and  balances  of  the  Constitution,  but  ultimately  in  the  subju 
gation  of  the  Senate,  in  the  subversion  of  the  States,  and  in  the  overthrow 
of  the  Union. 

"  7.  That  we  earnestly  condemn  the  establishment  and  continuance  of 
military  government  in  the  States,  and  especially  the  trial  of  citizens  by 
military  commissions  as  unnecessary,  unwise,  and  inconsistent  with  the 
fundamental  principles  of  civil  liberty.  Neither  military  governments  nor 
military  commissions,  for  the  trial  of  civilians  in  time  of  peace,  can  be  tol 
erated  by  a  free  people  resolved  to  maintain  free  institutions. 

"  8.  That  the  maintenance  of  great  armies  and  navies  in  time  of  peace 
imposes  heavy  burdens  on  industry,  and  is  dangerous  to  liberty.  We  in 
sist,  therefore,  on  the  reduction  of  our  army  and  navy  to  the  smallest  num 
bers  consistent  with  due  efficiency,  and  upon  the  withdrawal  from  the 
Southern  States  of  all  military  force  not  absolutely  necessary  for  the  sup 
port  of  the  civil  authority. 

u  9.  That  no  fears  need  be  entertained  of  evil  consequences  from  the 
extension  of  the  area  of  the  United  States ;  while,  therefore,  we  have 
neither  the  purpose  nor  the  wish  to  impose  our  institutions  by  force  upon 
any  people,  we  shall  welcome  the  accession  to  the  American  Union  of 
neighbor  States  whenever  they  are  willing  to  come  in  and  can  be  received 
without  breach  of  international  obligations. 

"  10.  That  the  full  weight  of  American  assertion  and  influence  should 
be  given  to  the  doctrine  that  the  citizens  and  subjects  of  all  civilized 
States  have  the  right  to  choose  in  what  country  and  under  what  govern 
ment  they  will  live :  and  we  especially  insist  that  all  American  citizens, 
whether  native  or  naturalized,  shall  be  promptly  and  efficiently  protected 
by  the  national  Government,  in  every  part  of  the  world,  against  the  op 
pression  and  injustice  of  all  governments  whatever. 

"  11.  That  in  our  judgment  the  conduct  of  our  Indian  affairs  has  been 
marked  by  great  corruption,  and  needs  to  be  thoroughly  reformed.  To 
protect  the  remnants  of  the  powerful  tribes  which  once  possessed  this 
broad  land  in  their  decay  and  weakness,  is  the  plain  duty  of  the  powerful 
nation  which  has  succeeded  them. 

"  12.  That  labor  is  the  true  source  of  all  wealth,  and  the  men  of  labor 
are  not  only  the  real  authors  of  the  material  well-being,  but  the  best  de 
fenders  of  the  honor  and  interests  of  the  country ;  it  is,  therefore,  not  less 
the  dictate  of  wise  policy  than  of  sound  principles  that  the  rights  of  labor 
be  fully  maintained,  and  every  possible  opportunity  of  individual  improve 
ment  secured,  by  just  laws,  to  the  working-men  of  the  country. 

"  13.  That  honor  and  duty  alike  require  the  honest  payment  of  the 
public  debt  and  the  faithful  performance  of  all  public  obligations ;  but 
we  do  not  admit  that  creditors,  more  than  other  men,  are  entitled  to  spe 
cial  favor  in  the  interpretation  of  the  laws  by  which  their  rights  and  the 
public  duties  are  determined.  The  interpretation  of  laws,  in  cases  of  con 
flicting  interests,  belongs  to  the  courts. 


570  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  14.  That  it  is  the  duty  of  Congress  to  arrest  all  wasteful  expendi 
tures  ;  to  alleviate  the  burdens  of  taxation  by  "wise  distribution ;  to  reduce 
and  remove,  as  far  as  practicable,  those  which  bear  especially  upon  labor, 
and  to  prevent,  by  wise  laws,  mismanagement,  fraud,  and  corruption  in 
the  collection  of  the  revenue ;  and  it  is  equally  the  duty  of  every  branch 
of  the  Government  to  enforce  and  practise  the  most  rigid  economy  in  the 
conduct  of  our  public  affairs. 

"  15.  That  we  invite  and  welcome  the  cooperation  of  all  patriotic  citi 
zens  who  are  willing  to  unite  with  us  in  our  determination  to  maintain 
the  union  of  the  States,  the  rights  of  the  States,  and  the  rights  of  citizens ; 
to  arrest  the  progress  of  consolidation  and  the  arbitrary  exercise  of  mili 
tary  power  ;  and  to  bring  back  to  the  Government  economical,  vigorous, 
and  beneficial  administration,  and  to  the  States  and  to  the  people  peace, 
progress,  and  prosperity." 

I  am  allowed,  in  connection  with  this  subject,  and  in  conclu 
sion  of  it,  to  lay  before  my  readers  the  following  extremely  in 
teresting  letter  of  ex-Governor  Seymour,  written  now  nearly  a 
year  ago : 

"UTICA,  NEW  TOEK,  September  13,  1ST3. 

"  .  .  .  .In  answer  to  your  inquiries  about  the  action  of  the  National 
Democratic  Convention  of  1868,  and  the  attitude  of  Chief- Justice  Chase 
in  relation  to  it,  I  can  say  that  great  injustice  has  been  done  to  him  by 
those  who  charge  that  he  sought  its  nomination ;  or  that  he  showed  any 
willingness  to  sacrifice  any  political  principles  to  gain  it. 

"  The  facts,  so  far  as  my  knowledge  and  belief  go,  are  simply  these : 
Early  in  1868  the  question  as  to  the  policy  to  be  pursued  by  the  Demo 
cratic  party  was  discussed  by  its  leading  men.  There  were  the  usual  dif 
ferences  of  opinion  with  regard  to  the  "candidates  to  be  named  for  national 
offices.  In  New  York  there  was  a  general  agreement  upon  Judge  Church, 
if  the  candidate  for  the  presidency  should  be  taken  from  this  State ;  or 
upon  Mr.  Hendricks,  of  Indiana,  if  the  candidate  should  be  taken  from  out 
side  of  its  limits.  There  was  no  ill-will  toward  other  persons  named  for 
the  office  of  President ;  but  these  gentlemen  were  deemed  the  most  avail 
able  under  the  circumstances.  They  were  voted  for  by  the  delegation 
from  New  York,  in  the  convention.  But  behind  the  question  as  to  prefer 
ences  with  regard  to  Democratic  candidates,  there  were  grave  doubts  if 
any  one  could  be  elected  by  the  unaided  strength  of  that  party.  While 
there  was  general  dissatisfaction  with  the  conduct  and  policy  of  the  Re 
publican  organization,  yet  the  prejudices  engendered  by  the  war  against 
the  Democratic  party  still  lingered  in  the  minds  of  great  numbers  who 
wished  for  a  change  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs.  The  propriety  of 
putting  in  nomination  some  one  who  could  command  the  votes  of  such 
persons  was  also  discussed.  No  direct  movement  could  be  made  to  bring 
about  such  a  result  until  the  body  of  the  party  should  approve  of  the 


LETTER  OF  EX-GOVERNOR  SEYMOUR.  571 

policy,  and  until  the  regular  candidates  should  consent  to'  it.  In  the 
mean  time  the  considerations  in  favor  of  such  a  policy  were  in  various 
ways  brought  to  public  notice  so  that  they  might  be  duly  weighed  in  case 
the  contingency  should  arise  when  it  would  be  advisable  to  present  it  for 
action.  Such  considerations  were  briefly  these :  In  the  first  place,  it  was 
doubtful  if  a  Democrat  could  be  elected  President.  In  the  next  place,  if 
elected,  could  he  without  a  strong  body  of  supporters  in  the  national 
Legislature  carry  on  a  successful  Administration  ?  The  tenure-of-office  act 
tied  the  hands  of  the  President.  The  Republicans  held  control  of  both 
branches  of  Congress.  If  the  Democrats  elected  a  President,  he  would 
have  responsibility  without  power.  His  position  would  be  worse  than 
that  of  President  Johnson,  who  had  struggled  with  ability  and  vigor,  but 
vainly,  to  uphold  executive  rights  and  powers.  But  the  question  came  up, 
How  could  Democrats  support  any  one  who  did  not  hold  their  views  as 
to  those  questions  which  had  divided  parties  ?  Or  how  could  any  man 
worthy  of  the  presidential  chair  be  the  candidate  of  a  party  with  whose 
principles  he  was  not  in  accord  ?  If  the  election  -was  to  turn  upon  the  old 
and  standard  questions,  it  was  clear  that  no  candidate  could  be  placed  in 
nomination  by  the  convention  who  was  not  identified  with  the  political 
party  it  represented.  But  many  thought,  and  I  agreed  with  them,  that 
the  condition  of  the  country  demanded  the  suspension  of  the  questions 
usually  involved  in  our  elections ;  that  there  were  underlying  principles 
which  must  be  adjusted  before  political  action  could  take  its  usual  forms. 
The  country  had  just  passed  through  a  long  and  bloody  war.  The  neces 
sities  of  the  conflict  or  the  policy  of  those  in  power  had  broken  down 
many  of  the  maxims  of  civil  liberty  and  of  personal  right,  which  had  ever 
before  been  held  as  sacred  and  inviolable.  Military  power  and  martial 
law  had  ruled  so  long  that  we  had  lost  sight  of  the  best  and  greatest  prin 
ciples  of  our  government.  As  the  war  was  closed,  thoughtful  men  were 
anxious  that  there  should  be  a  distinct  and  clear  return  to  the  maxims, 
that  the  military  power  should  always  be  held  in  subordination  to  civil 
power — that  ours  should  be  a  government  of  law,  not  of  mere  force.  Men 
could  consistently  act  together  in  the  election  of  1868  to  bring  about  this 
return  to  a  constitutional  policy  who  did  not  agree  about  the  finances, 
the  tariff,  or  the  lines  which  marked  the  boundaries  between  the  State  and 
General  Government  jurisdictions.  Of  what  value  or  significance  were  dis 
cussions  about  tariffs,  or  State  rights,  or  the  finances,  if  we  were  not 
to  have  fair  elections,  uncontrolled  by  military  authority;  if  personal 
rights  and  civil  liberty  were  to  be  trampled  on  by  martial  law,  and  court- 
martials  were  to  take  the  place  of  judicial  tribunals  ?  If  the  issues  of  the 
election  were  to  turn  upon  this  contest  between  civil  and  military  power, 
the  name  of  the  Chief-Justice  naturally  presented  itself  to  men's  minds.  He 
had  taken  a  bold  stand  against  the  usurpation  of  power  by  military  courts. 
As  a  judge  he  had  decided  against  the  legality  of  the  military  trials 
in  Indiana.  He  had  upheld  the  laws  of  evidence,  procedure,  and  justice 


572  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

during  the  impeachment  trial  of  President  Johnson.  These  facts,  together 
with  his  high  position,  marked  ability,  and  stainless  private  character,  made 
him  prominent  as  a  fit  standard-bearer  in  the  contest  between  civil  rights 
and  the  military  power.  In  such  a  contest  the  Democratic  party  could 
consistently  make  him  their  leader,  and  he  could  with  propriety  be  their 
candidate.  While  his  name  was  thus  brought  into  the  discussions  of 
Democratic  councils,  there  was  no  communication  with  him  on  the  part 
of  any  delegate  to  the  convention,  to  my  knowledge.  I  think  I  first  sug 
gested  the  propriety  of  his  nomination,  if  the  contingency  should  arise 
which  would  make  it  expedient ;  and  I  frequently  presented  to  other  dele 
gates  the  reasons  in  favor  of  it.  Yet  in  no  way  had  I  any  communication 
with  him,  directly  or  indirectly,  nor  did  I  ever  hear  that  he  looked  upon 
his  nomination  as  probable  or  desirable.  We  thought  he  could  not  reject 
it,  if  it  was  made  upon  the  ground  I  have  suggested.  When  the  conven 
tion  met,  the  friends  of  Democratic  candidates  were  earnest  and  urgent  in 
behalf  of  those  they  deemed  the  most  suitable  and  popular.  As  the  diffi 
culty  in  the  way  of  agreeing  upon  a  Democratic  candidate  became  appar 
ent,  the  name  of  Mr.  Chase  was  looked  upon  with  more  favor.  The  dele 
gation  from  New  York  decided  upon  presenting  it  to  the  convention  un 
less  it  could  secure  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Hendricks.  There  would  have 
been  a  strong  opposition  to  Mr.  Chase  at  the  outset,  but  I  think  in  the  end 
he  would  have  been  nominated.  But  time  was  needed  to  bring  this  about, 
and  the  delegates  were  impatient  to  return  to  their  homes.  Many  of  them 
could  not  afford  the  expense  of  a  long  stay  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and 
none  of  them  had  made  arrangements  for  a  protracted  session.  Impa 
tience  to  close  the  work  of  the  convention  had  much  to  do  with  its  final 
unconsidered  action. 

"  I  believed  Mr.  Chase  would  be  elected  if  nominated.  This  opinion 
did  not  spring  from  any  personal  prejudice  in  his  favor,  for  my  acquaint 
ance  with  him  was  very  slight ;  and  I  had  not  seen  him  in  many  years. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  felt  a  strong  political  and  personal  friendship  for  the 
Democratic  candidates.  I  agreed  with  the  other  members  of  the  New 
York  delegation  in  urging  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Hendricks  if  any  Demo 
crat  was  to  \>G  selected,  and  I  did  not  wish  to  have  Mr.  Chase  presented 
unless  it  could  be  done  with  the  assent  of  other  candidates  and  their 
friends.  His  name  could  not  be  urged  in  a  Democratic  convention  in  any 
way  that  seemed  to  be  hostile  to  any  Democratic  leader.  At  the  outset 
there  would  have  been  some  feeling  of  opposition  to  him  in  the  Demo 
cratic  ranks,  but  that  would  have  passed  away  as  the  character  of  the 
political  issue  made  itself  clear.  The  whole  contest  would  have  been 
narrowed  down  to  the  question  whether  this  Government  was  to  become 
a  military  one  in  its  policy  and  aspects,  or  was  to  be  restored  to  its  con 
stitutional  action.  The  very  professions  and  positions  of  the  candidates 
would  have  made  clear  and  distinct  the  fact  that  the  people  were  called 
upon  to  decide  between  a  military  or  civil  policy ;  between  force  or  laws ; 


THE  LIBERAL  REPUBLICAN  MOVEMENT.  573 

between  military  tribunals  or  courts  known  to  our  traditions  and  customs, 
and  designed  to  protect  the  rights,  the  property,  and  the  homes  of  our 
citizens. 

"  I  have  no  other  feelings  toward  General  Grant  than  those  of  good-will, 
and  I  hope  his  Administration  may,  in  the  end,  prove  to  be  a  blessing  to 
our  country.  I  do  not  wish  to  question  his  purpose  to  direct  public  affairs 
according  to  his  convictions  of  official  duty  and  policy  as  they  have  been 
impressed  upon  him  by  the  circumstances,  the  pursuits,  and  the  events  of 
his  life ;  but  I  believe  the  interests  of  the  country,  at  the  close  of  the 
civil  war,  demanded  the  guidance  of  one  trained  in  the  schools  of  civil 
policy,  of  judicial  impartiality,  and  of  statesmanlike  experience  and  labor. 
I  recognize  the  value  of  General  Grant's  military  services  and  his  claims 
upon  the  gratitude  of  his  country,  but  think  the  welfare  of  that  country 
and  his  own  interests  and  happiness  would  have  been  promoted  if  he  had 
remained  in  the  exalted  military  position  he  held  at  the  close  of  the  war, 
and  for  which  he  was  fitted  by  the  training  and  events  of  his  life.  I  be 
lieve  that,  if  Mr.  Chase  had  been  made  President  in  1868,  the  difficulties 
and  dangers  which  now  perplex  our  country  would  have  been  at  this  time 
satisfactorily  adjusted.  I  am  truly  yours, 

"  HORATIO  SEYMOUR." 


NOTE  TO   CHAPTER  L. 

THE  connection  of  Mr.  Chase's  name  with  the  action  of  the  New  York 
Convention  was,  in  point  of  fact,  the  end  of  his  participation  in  active 
politics.  In  1872  some  prominence  was  given  to  him  in  connection  with 
the  "Liberal  Republican"  movement,  which  culminated  in  the  nomina 
tion  of  Mr.  Greeley  at  Cincinnati,  in  May  of  that  year.  But  the  state  of 
his  health  was  such  as  to  make  it  quite  impossible  that  he  could  receive 
the  nomination,  though  he  received  thirty-six  votes  in  the  convention. 
He  took  no  very  great  interest  in  the  matter;  but  he  entertained  a  hope 
that  the  movement  would  result  in  bringing  the  Democratic  party  to  a 
square  support  of  the  doctrine  of  universal  suffrage.  At  the  end  of  the 
next  chapter  will  be  found  two  letters  of  Mr.  Chase  to  Demarest  Lloyd, 
which  embody  all  that  he  thought  on  the  subject. 


CHAPTER   LI. 

LETTEKS   OF  ME.   CHASE   UPON  IMPEACHMENT  AND  THE  NEW  YOKE 

CONVENTION. 

Mr.  Schuckers  to  John  8.  Corbin,  Selma,  Alabama. 

"  WASHINGTON,  November  25,  1S67. 

".  .  .  .  /^iHEEF- JUSTICE  CHASE  directs  me  to  acknowledge  the  re- 
^~^  ceipt  of  your  letter  and  paper  for  the  press.  He  is  grateful 
for  the  confidence  and  favor  with  which  a  portion  of  his  countrymen  seem 
to  regard  him ;  but  under  the  rules  he  has  prescribed  to  himself,  cannot 
request  of  any  journal  the  insertion  of  your  communication.  He  directs  me 
to  say,  moreover,  that  he  desires  no  commendation  through  comparisons 
with  statesmen  or  soldiers  whom  the  people  honor.  Under  no  circum 
stances  could  he  sanction  any  disparagement  of  General  Grant  or  any  of  the 
brave  men  who  shared  in  labors  and  achievements  by  which,  so  far  as  mil 
itary  service  was  concerned,  the  integrity  of  the  republic  was  vindicated 
and  saved.  Their  honor  and  renown  are  public  treasures,  which  he  would 
gladly  augment,  but  by  no  means  diminish.  ..." 

Mr.  Chase  to  Colonel  William  B.  Thomas,  Philadelphia. 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  10,  1868. 

" .  .  .  .  I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  letter  and  for  your  views  of 
the  situation,  and  the  more  so  because  it  makes  no  reference  whatever  to 
the  impeachment.  To  be  sure,  I  expected  no  such  reference  in  a  letter 
from  you ;  but  there  are  so  many,  and  persons  of  sense,  too,  who  think  it 
necessary  and  proper  to  advise  me  on  that  subject,  that  I  could  not  help 
noticing  the  absence  of  it  in  your  letter.  If  the  correspondents  who  favor 
me  with  such  letters  could  only  be  made  aware  that  they  are,  never  read, 
but  consigned  to  the  waste-basket  as  soon  as  their  subject  is  ascertained, 
they  would,  doubtless,  save  themselves  some  labor. 

"  As  to  political  matters,  I  take  only  the  interest  of  a  citizen  who  loves 
his  country  and  desires  earnestly  the  speediest  possible  restoration  to  all 
the  benefits  of  union  of  the  ex-rebel  States  on  the  basis  of  equal  rights  secured 
by  equal  suffrage.  "Whatever  I  may  have  formerly  thought  or  even  desired 
in  connection  with  the  presidency,  I  wish  now  to  have  my  name  complete- 


THE  IMPEACHMENT.  '  575 

ly  disconnected  from  it.  I  am  satisfied  that  I  am  not  a  suitable  candidate 
for  either  party.  My  opinions  on  the  leading  questions  of  the  day  are  well 
known,  or  may  be  inferred,  without  difficulty,  from  my  public  acts.  On 
some  matters,  intimately  connected  with  those  leading  questions,  I  shall, 
probably  be  obliged  to  pass  judicially.  And  I  cannot  be  a  party  judge. 
I  must  express  my  honest  opinions  of  the  Constitution  and  the  law.  I 
must  do  my  duty  without  fear  and  without  favor.  Thus  acting,  it  is  not 
likely  that  my  judgments  will  gratify  the  wishes  of  party  on  either  hand. 
Hence,  I  prefer  to  keep  clear  of  all  personal  interest  in  political  contests. 

"A  year  ago— even  six  months  ago — I  did  not  anticipate  the  present 
condition  of  affairs.  But  impeachment  has  come ;  the  constitutionality  of 
trials  of  civilians,  in  the  late  rebel  States,  by  military  commissions  is  before 
the  court ;  new  doctrines  are  promulgated  by  Republican  as  well  as  Dem 
ocratic  conventions,  of  disregard  to  public  faith,  and,  in  respect  to  these, 
the  question  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  legal-tender  law  assumes  new 
importance.  And  in  regard  to  all  these  matters  I  have  a  not  unimportant 
voice.  I  prefer,  in  this  state  of  things,  to  dismiss  every  thought  which 
might  incline  the  scale  of  judgment  either  way.  Do  what  I  may,  I  cannot 
hope  to  escape  imputations.  I  hope  only  to  avoid  giving  any  just  occasion 
for  them.  The  rest  I  cheerfully  leave  to  Him  who  alone  judgeth  right 
eously.  ..." 

To  J.  E.  Snodgrass,  New  York. 

"WASHINGTON,  March  16,  1868. 

" ....  I  have  been  a  steady  friend  to  the  congressional  policy  of  re 
construction  so  far  as  it  contemplated  equal  rights  for  all,  secured  by  equal 
constitutions  and  laws.  But  I  do  not  believe  in  military  domination  any 
more  than  I  do  in  a  slaveholding  oligarchy ;  nor  do  I  believe  that  any 
thing  has  been  accomplished  by  military  supremacy  in  the  rebel  States 
that  could  not  have  been  as  well,  if  not  better,  accomplished  by  civil 
supremacy,  authorized  and  regulated  by  Congress,  with  military  subordi 
nation.  But  I  prefer  even  military  domination  for  a  time,  itself  controlled 
and  directed  by  Congress,  with  an  honest  reference  to  restoration  of  the 
States  to  full  participation  in  the  government,  with  suffrage  secured  to  all 
who  will  not  seek  to  withhold  it  from  others,  to  any  such  plan  as  that  pro 
posed  by  the  President. 

"  While  I  have  condemned  the  President's  attempt  to  impose  on  the 
colored  population  of  the  South  the  rule  of  the  ex-rebel  population,  and 
his  hostility  to  congressional  reconstruction,  I  have  not  thought  it  neces 
sary  to  revile  him.  I  do  not  quarrel  with  people  about  matters  in  which 
I  differ  from  them.  I  like  manly  and  frank  dealing  even  between  the  ex- 
tremest  political  opponents.  I  have,  -therefore,  called  on  the  President 
when  official  propriety  has  required,  and  three  or  four  of  these  occasions 
have  been  at  his  request ;  others  have  been  on  public  occasions.  Once, 
and  once  only,  have  I  called  to  serve,  if  I  could,  old  friends  who  had  done 
faithful  service  in  the  war.  On  several  occasions  when  I  have  met  the 


576  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

President,  public  matters  have  been  the  theme  of  conversation ;  and  I  be 
lieve  I  never  failed  in  what  I  thought  my  duty  on  such  occasions.  I 
urged  him  by  every  argument  that  I  could  think  of  to  abandon  his  oppo 
sition  to  congressional  reconstruction,  and  to  universal  suffrage. 

"  I  do  not  deny  that  sympathy  with  him  had  something  to  do  with  my 
action.  I  remembered  his  loyalty  at  the  outset  of  the  war  and  his  patriot 
ism  all  through  it,  and  I  urged  him  to  retrace  his  steps.  But  I  could  do 
nothing.  I  believe,  however,  that  he  saw  that  my  purpose  was  an  honest 
purpose,  and  not  actuated  by  personal  hostility,  and  therefore  felt  a  cer 
tain  degree  of  respect  and  perhaps  regard  for  me.  It  was  not  enough  to 
induce  him  to  spare  my  friends  from  removal,  but  it  led  him,  doubtless, 
to  pay  me  the  compliment  of  attending  a  reception  of  mine,  to  which 
newspaper  reference  has  been  made. 

"  Now,  that  is  all  of  my  intercourse  with  the  President.  I  tell  you  for 
your  own  satisfaction  and  information.  Let  it  go  no  farther.  I  will  not 
defend  myself  against  calumny  except  by  my  acts. 

"  And  in  the  present  heated  temper  of  the  public  mind  I  cannot  hope 
to  escape  a  great  deal  of  honest  censure.  My  duties  are  judicial.  What 
I  honestly  believe  the  Constitution  and  laws  sanction  or  condemn,  that 
I  must,  fearless  of  consequences,  sanction  or  condemn.  I  am  of  no  party 
on  the  bench.  If  I  believe  an  act,  or  part  of  an  act,  of  a  Republican  Con 
gress  to  be  unconstitutional,  I  must  say  so.  If  a  man  whom  Republicans 
would  gladly  see  condemned,  has  rights,  and  I  must  judge,  the  rights  shall 
be  respected.  And  so  of  the  Democrats.  I  expect  to  please  neither  at  all 
times.  But,  God  helping  me,  I  will  do  my  duty,  sorry  only  that  limited 
powers  do  not  allow  me  to  do  it  better.  ..." 

To  Gerrit  Smith,  Peterboro\  New  York. 

"WASHINGTON,  April  2,  1SG8. 

"  .  .  .  .  The  subject  of  the  presidency  has  become  distasteful  to  me. 
Some  will  say,  '  sour  grapes ; '  and  there  may  be  some  ground  for  the  ap 
plication  of  the  proverb.  But  I  really  think  that  I  am  not  half  so  ambi 
tious  of  place  as  I  am  represented  to  be.  Certainly,  I  never  used  any  of 
the  ordinary  means  to  get  place.  I  worked  for  ideas  and  principles,  and 
measures  embodying  them,  and  with  all  citizens  of  like  faith  and  aims ; 
and  was  always  quite  willing  to  take  place,  or  be  left  out  of  place,  as  the 
cause,  in  the  judgment  of  its  friends,  required.  And  I  am  certainly  en 
tirely  content,  now,  to  be  left  out  of  consideration  in  connection  with  the 
presidency.  .  .  . 

"  My  position  is  peculiarly  difficult.  As  the  Chief-Justice,  my  whole 
duties,  except  in  the  single  case  of  impeachment,  connect  me  with  another 
body.  Coming  into  the  Senate  to  preside,  I  feel  and  am  felt  as  a  sort  of 
foreign  element.  The  Senate,  like  all  other  bodies,  has  a  good  deal  of  esprit 
du  corps.  I,  as  Chief- Justice,  look  for  my  powers  and  duties  in  the  Consti 
tution,  and  very  naturally  disagree  as  to  their  nature  and  extent  from  many 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  OATH.  577 

Senators.  So  far,  these  differences  have  been  attended  by  no  disagreeable 
result.  The  majority  has  substantially  sustained  my  views,  and  I  have 
tried  to  avoid  every  claim  which  could  be,  as  I  thought,  called  in  ques 
tion. 

"  Mr.  Sumner's  motion,  yesterday,  alarmed  me.  The  question,  how 
ever,  forced  itself  upon  me :  '  What  will  be  my  duty  in  case  the  Senate 
deny  me  the  casting  vote  which  belongs  to  the  President  of  the 
Senate,  sitting  as  a  court  of  impeachment,  so  refusing,  in  effect,  to 
recognize  my  right  to  preside  ? '  Happily,  I  was  not  compelled  to  decide 
this  question.  ..." 

"  WASHINGTON,  April  19,  1868. 

"  .  .  .  .  Many  thanks  for  your  two  kind  notes  and  for  the  article  on 
the  casting  vote  in  which  you  so  admirably  stated  the  true  doctrine. 
Nettie  also  desires  to  thank  you  for  your  remembrance  of  her,  and  I  in 
close  her  note. 

"  The  trial  of  the  President  draws  toward  its  end.  The  evidence  will 
doubtless  be  closed  to-morrow,  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  first 
speech  on  the  part  of  the  managers  will  be  made.  If  the  Senate  adheres 
to  its  resolution  to  allow  only  two  arguments,  on  each  side,  I  do  not  see 
how  the  discussion  can  be  protracted  beyond  the  week,  unless  the  Senate 
retire  for  consultation  among  themselves. 

"  To  me  the  whole  business  seems  wrong,  and  if  I  had  any  option  I 
would  not  take  part  in  it.  But  the  President  is  on  trial,  and  the  Consti 
tution  is  express  that  *  when  the  President  is  tried,  the  Chief-Justice  shall 
preside.' 

"  Nothing  is  clearer  to  my  mind  than  that  acts  of  Congress  not  war 
ranted  by  the  Constitution  are  not  laws.  In  case  a  law  believed  by  the 
President  to  be  unwarranted  is  passed,  notwithstanding  his  veto,  by  the 
required  two-thirds  majority,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is  his  duty  to  execute 
it  precisely  as  if  he  held  it  to  be  constitutional,  except  in  the  case  where 
it  directly  attacks  and  impairs  the  Executive  power  confided  to  him  by 
the  Constitution.  In  that  case  it  seems  to  me  to  be  the  clear  duty  of  the 
President  to  disregard  the  law,  so  far  at  least  as  it  may  be  necessary  in 
order  to  bring  the  question  of  its  constitutionality  before  the  judicial  tri 
bunals. 

"  Until  the  late  rebellion  a  broad  distinction  has  always  been  taken  be 
tween  the  oath  of  office  required  of  the  President  and  the  oath  required  of 
other  officers.  That  of  the  President  is  prescribed  by  the  Constitution 
itself:  *  I  do  solemnly  swear  that  I  will  faithfully  execute  the  office  of 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  will  to  the  best  of  my  ability  preserve, 
protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.'  That  of  other 
officers  was  prescribed  by  law — the  first  ever  enacted  under  the  Constitu 
tion — and  follows  almost  literally  its  direction :  '  I  do  solemnly  swear  that 
I  will  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.' 

"  The  Test-Oath  Act  of  1862  introduced  for  the  first  time  into  the  oath 
37 


578  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

to  be  administered  to  other  officers  than  the  President  the  word  '  defend ' 
in  addition  to  the  word  '  support.' 

"  How  can  the  President  fulfill  his  oath  to  preserve,  protect,  and  defend 
the  Constitution,  if  he  has  no  right  to  defend  it  against  an  act  of  Congress 
sincerely  believed  by  him  to  have  been  passed  in  violation  of  it  ? 

"  To  me,  therefore,  it  seems  perfectly  clear  that  the  President  had  a 
perfect  right,  and  indeed  was  under  the  highest  obligation,  to  remove  Mr. 
Stanton,  if  he  made  the  removal  not  in  wanton  disregard  of  a  constitu 
tional  law,  but  with  a  sincere  belief  that  the  Tenure-of-Office  Act  was  un 
constitutional  and  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  the  question  before  the 
Supreme  Court.  Plainly  it  was  a  proper  and  peaceful,  if  not  the  only 
proper  and  peaceful  mode  of  protecting  and  defending  the  Constitution. 

"  I  was  greatly  disappointed  and  pained,  therefore,  when  the  Senate 
yesterday  excluded  the  evidence  of  members  of  the  Cabinet  as  to  their  con 
sultations  and  decisions  (in  some  of  which  Mr.  Stanton  took  a  concurring 
part),  and  the  advice  given  to  the  President  in  pursuance  thereof.  I  could 
conceive  of  no  evidence  more  proper  to  be  received  or  more  appropriate  to 
enlighten  a  court  as  to  the  intent  with  which  the  act  was  done ;  and  ac 
cordingly  ruled  that  it  was  admissible. 

"  The  vote,  I  fear,  indicated  a  purpose  which,  if  carried  into  effect,  will 
not  satisfy  the  American  people,  unless  they  are  prepared  to  admit  that 
Congress  is  above  the  Constitution. 

"  Have  you  looked  at  the  questions,  whether  in  the  event  of  conviction 
the  President  pro  tempore  of  the  Senate  is  an  *  officer '  who,  under  the  Con 
stitution,  can  '  act  as  President  ? '  and  whether,  if  such  an  officer,  he  must 
remain  such  while  acting  as  President  ?  My  own  mind  answers  the  last 
question  in  the  affirmative,  and  inclines  to  the  negative  on  the  first. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  yo.u  ought  to  give  the  public  the  American  view 
of  these  questions,  if  you  can  find  time  to  consider  them.  ..." 

To  Alexander  Long,  Esq.,  Cincinnati. 

"WASHINGTON,  April  19,  1863. 

" .  .  .  .  My  reply  to  your  last  note  has  been  somewhat  delayed.  My 
time,  as  you  may  readily  imagine,  is  much  occupied. 

"  It  appears  to  me  quite  unlikely  that  such  a  union  as  is  essential  to 
success  can  be  brought  about  among  those  who  agree  in  opposition  to 
military  commissions  and  military  ascendency  in  the  Government. 

"  The  Democratic  party,  no  doubt,  could  insure  such  a  union  by  pro 
claiming  anew  its  old  creed  of  equal  and  exact  justice  for  all  men,  and  de 
claring  itself  for  the  full  restoration  of  the  States,  now  unrepresented,  on 
the  basis  of  universal  suffrage  and  universal  amnesty,  but  against  military 
government  and  military  commissions,  and  the  whole  train  of  related  doc- 
trines,  such  as  State  suicide,  State  subjugation,  confiscation,  and  the  like. 
Of  such  a  union,  if  brought  about,  I  should  certainly  desire  the  success. 
I  should  wish  as  earnestly  now  as  I  did  in  1849  for  the  success  of  the 


SUFFRAGE  AND  AMNESTY.  579 

Democracy,  united  on  such  a  basis.  I  could  not  wish  otherwise  and  be 
faithful  to  my  antecedents. 

"  With  these  sentiments  I  should  not  be  at  liberty  to  refuse  the  use  of 
my  name  in  the  contingency  you  refer  to.  I  see,  however,  very  slight  in 
dications  that  such  a  contingency  will  occur ;  and  I  have,  certainly,  no 
desire  for  a  nomination.  I  greatly  prefer  to  remain  disconnected  from  all 
political  responsibilities,  save  that  of  casting  my  vote. 

"  I  have  no  doubt,  however,  that  such  a  union  as  you  desire  would  be 
attended  with  complete  success.  Nor  is  there  any  reason  stronger  than 
prejudice  why  it  should  not  take  place.  The  restoration  of  the  Southern 
States  on  the  basis  of  universal  suffrage  is  now  certain.  Every  one  of 
them  will  have  adopted  constitutions  recognizing  the  right  of  every  citi 
zen,  not  disfranchised,  to  vote,  before  the  present  Congress  ends ;  most  of 
them  certainly,  and  all  of  them  probably,  before  the  presidential  election. 
The  united  Democracy,  frankly  conceding  the  permanence  of  these  consti 
tutions  and  the  rights  of  suffrage  secured  by  them,  and  appealing  to  the 
sentiments  of  justice  and  generosity  and  enlightened  interest  for  universal 
amnesty  and  the  removal  of  all  political  disfranchisements,  could  carry  two- 
thirds,  if  not  more,  of  those  States ;  whereas,  without  the  union  suggested, 
and  upon  old  issues,  the  Democratic  party  can  hardly  hope  to  carry  one  of 
them,  and  its  success  seems  impossible.  ..." 

To  Theodore  Tilton,  New  York. 

"WASHINGTON,  April  19,  1868. 

" .  .  .  .  Your  article  under  the  caption,  '  A  Folded  Banner,'  was  very 
different  from  any  thing  which  your  conversation  with  me  foreshadowed. 

"You  visited  me  at  my  house  and  invited  a  conversation.  I  was  glad 
to  see  you,  as  I  always  have  been ;  and  my  esteem  for  you  and  trust  in 
you  were  such  that  I  talked  with  you  very  freely.  I  little  thought  that  I 
was  on  trial  before  an  editor,  and  that  he  was  about  to  pronounce  a  sen 
tence  upon  me,  ex  cathedra,  according  to  the  supposed  result  of  his  investi 
gations.  Had  I  been  aware  of  that,  I  should  probably  have  followed  a 
great  military  example,  and  observed  a  prudent  silence. 

"  I  had  seen,  with  perfect  content,  so  far  as  I  was  concerned,  the  Re 
publican  preference  concentrating  upon  General  Grant.  I  had  observed 
also,  new  shibboleths  of  Republican  faith,  invented  and  demanded,  in  the 
hot  contentions  of  the  time,  which  I  could  not  frame  my  lips  to  pronounce. 
I  felt,  therefore,  that  whatever  might  be  my  obligation  to  support  Repub 
lican  candidates,  because  of  my  agreement  with  the  majority  of  the  party 
on  the  great  point  of  equal  rights  protected  by  equal  suffrage,  I  could  not 
myself  properly  represent  it  as  its  candidate.  And  I  said  to  you  that  I 
could  not  take  the  Republican  nomination  if  I  could  have  it.  I  knew  I 
could  not  have  it,  even  were  General  Grant  out  of  the  way,  if  I  proclaimed 
my  opinions  on  impeachment,  military  commissions,  military  government, 
and  the  like ;  and  I  wanted  no  nomination  with  concealed  or  unavowed 


580  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

opinions ;  and,  indeed,  wanted  no  nomination  at  all.  For  this  reason,  I 
said  I  would  not  take  the  Republican  nomination  if  I  could  have  it.  I 
had  said  it  to  nobody  else.  I  said  it  to  you  because  I  felt  like  saying  it, 
and  thought  you  knew  me  well  enough  to  believe  me.  I  certainly  never 
dreamed  of  a  proclamation  by  you  in  the  Independent,  based  upon  it.  I 
knew  very  well  that  everybody  who  should  think  I  had  made  such  a  dec 
laration  to  you,  and  did  not  know  me  intimately,  would  characterize  it, 
coming  as  it  must  have  come,  from  one  who  knew  he  had  not  the  least 
chance  of  receiving  the  nomination,  in  very  uncomplimentary  terms. 

"  I  was  still  more  surprised  by  your  confident  expression  that  I  would 
accept  the  Democratic  nomination.  I  refused  to  say  to  you  that  I  would 
not  accept  it.  But  I  did  not  say  that  I  would  ;  nor  did  I  say  any  thing 
to  that  effect.  I  have  never  sought  or  expected  it.  I  have  never  thought 
it  in  the  least  degree  likely  that  it  would  be  offered  to  me.  It  would  have 
been  ridiculous  in  me  to  say  that  I  would  not  accept  what  had  not  been 
offered,  and  was  not  likely  to  be.  It  would  have  savored  strongly  of  a  van 
ity  and  presumption  justly  offensive,  and  from  which,  at  least,  I  hope  I  am 
free.  "What  you  said  led  me  to  suppose  that  you  agreed  with  me  in  opin 
ion,  that  the  Chief-Justice,  presiding  in  the  Senate,  has  the  same  right  as 
the  Vice-President  when  presiding  in  that  body,  and  I  stated  my  wish 
that  you  would  express  that  opinion  in  the  Independent.  You  said  you 
would,  and  your  article  does  contain  a  sentence  to  that  effect. 

"  For  this,  and  for  your  declaration  that  I  am  not  likely  to  abandon 
any  of  the  ideas  and  principles  on  which,  I  suppose,  your  former  prefer 
ence  was  based,  I  beg  you  to  accept  my  thanks.  I  regret  that  you  saw  fit 
to  withdraw  that  preference  with  such  a  flourish  of  trumpets.  You  might 
have  said,  with  truth,  that  I  was  neither  candidate  nor  aspirant  for  any 
nomination  ;  and  that  the  Independent  did  not  think  it  useful  to  urge  any 
further  consideration  of  my  name.  I  do  not  think  you  had  any  right  to 
make  any  other  inference  from  my  conversation  with  you  :  and  if  the  con 
versation  did  warrant  any  other  inference  by  you,  I  do  not  think  you  had 
a  right  to  use  a  private  conversation  for  the  purpose  of  making  it.  ...  " 

To  Richard  Gaines,  Esq. 

"WASHINGTON,  May  5,  1869. 

"  .  .  .  .  Your  kind  note  reached  me  a  day  or  two  since.  It  was  very 
pleasant  to  hear  from  you ;  for  the  days  when  a  few  of  us  were  united  in  a 
seemingly  insignificant  minority,  by  a  common  devotion  to  what  we 
sincerely  believed  to  be  a  good  and  noble  cause,  are  very  fresh  in  my 
remembrance.  I  have  made  no  friends  since  for  whom  I  cherish  a  warmer 
attachment  than  for  those  of  that  time. 

"I  was  a  Democrat  then;  too  democratic  for  the  Democratic  party  of 
those  days,  for  I  admitted  no  exception  on  account  of  race  or  color  or  con 
dition,  to  the  impartial  application  of  democratic  principles  to  all 'meas 
ures  and  to  all  men.  Such  a  Democrat  I  am  to-day. 


THE  IMPEACHMENT  TRIAL.  581 

"  But  I  am  not  a  candidate  nor  an  aspirant  for  any  political  office  ;  nor 
do  I  see  any  reason  for  thinking  that  the  people  will  ever  again  require  my 
services  in  any  political  capacity. 

"  As  a  citizen,  however,  I  shall  always  be  ready  to  aid,  so  far  as  I  prop 
erly  may,  'with  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  toward  all,'  in  the 
complete  restoration  of  the  States  lately  in  rebellion,  to  full  participation 
in  all  the  benefits  of  the  Union  on  the  basis  of  equal  rights  secured  by 
equal  suffrage.  I  fervently  desire  the  renewed  prosperity  of  those  States, 
and  of  all  their  citizens.  Restoration  on  this  basis  is  just  now  the  most 
important  object  of  political  efforts;  but  there  are  others  which  seern  to  be 
hardly  less  important.  I  refer  particularly  to  making  the  currency  good 
enough  to  pay  all  debts  whether  to  bond-holders  or  working-men,  and  to 
resistance  to  the  attempts  which  have  lately  become  so  alarming,  to  sub 
jugate  the  Executive  and  Judicial  Departments  of  the  Government  to  the 
unlimited'  control  of  the  Legislature,  and  to  subvert  the  regular  order  of 
the  administration  of  criminal  justice  by  substituting,  at  the  discretion 
of  Congress,  military  commissions  for  trials  by  jury  in  time  of  peace. 

"  With  these  views  you  will  readily  imagine  that  I  am  quite  content  to 
be  regarded  as  an  outsider  by  both  the  great  political  parties  which  now 
divide  the  country ;  and  to  preserve  my  independence  in  a  non-political 
station. 

"  This,  my  old  friend,  is  entirely  for  your  own  satisfaction,  and  not  for 
any  printer.  ..." 

To  Horace  Greeley. 

"  WASHINGTON,  Hay  19,  1863. 

" ....  I  am  very  sorry  to  see  in  the  Tribune  of  yesterday  a  statement 
that '  He  '—the  Chief-Justice—'  decided  the  vote  of  Mr.  Van  Winkle.  He 
did  his  utmost — happily  in  vain — to  carry  off  Messrs.  Anthony  and  Sprague. 
We  doubt  that  Mr.  Henderson  would  have  voted  as  he  did  but  for  the 
Chief-Justice's  exertions.' 

"  I  appeal  from  Horace  Greeley  thus  informed  to  Horace  Greeley  better 
informed.  More  lies  seem  to  be  afloat  about  me  than  I  thought  invention 
capable  of.  I  have  not  interchanged  a  word  with  Mr.  Vafl  Winkle  on  the 
subject  of  impeachment  that  I  remember,  and  my  acquaintance  with  him 
is  very  slight.  I  have  not  exerted  myself  to  influence  anybody  one  way 
or  the  other.  Until  yesterday,  when  I  happened  to  fall  in  with  him  on 
the  street,  all  my  conversation  with  Anthony  would  not  occupy  ten  min 
utes.  Sprague  was  not  influenced  by  me,  nor  did  I  seek  to  influence  him. 
Henderson  took  his  dinner — he  is  a  near  neighbor — twice  with  Sprague 
and  myself  during  the  trial,  but  I  am  sure  that  I  gave  him  no  advice  nor 
sought  in  anyway  to  control  him,  and  could  not  if  I  had.  The  stories 
about  dinner  are  mere  bosh,  and  so  are  the  stories  about  rides,  except  that 
there  is  a  grain  of  fact  sunk  in  gallons  of  falsehood.  On  particular  points 
in  occasional  talks  with  Senators,  I  have  expressed  my  opinion  just  as  I 
should  in  talk  with  you,  but  I  certainly  have  not  sought  to  make  converts 


582  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

to  my  views,  and  just  as  certainly  I  had  no  idea  when  I  put  the  question 
on  the  eleventh  article  what  the  result  would  be.  I  thought  it  doubtful 
and  very  doubtful,  with  the  probability  in  favor  of  conviction.  I  had  no 
information  whatever  how  any  Senator  would  vote:  I  mean  of  those  who 
had  not  read  opinions  or  declared  them  in  the  Senate,  except  of  course 
that  I  did  not  doubt  how  Sumner,  Drake,  and  those  of  that  sort,  would 
vote. 

"  I  care  very  little  for  clamor.  But  I  have  felt  greatly  enriched  by  your 
friendship  and  good  opinion,  and  know  I  have  done  nothing  which  should 
entail  the  loss  of  either.  I  have  kept  my  oath  on  the  trial,  and  have  done 
nothing  from  partiality  or  hostility. 

"  Your  article  of  May  9th,  '  Counsel  in  Extremity,'  was  just  and  kind, 
only  overrating  me.  I  have  not  made  a  step  from  my  platform  and  your  plat 
form  of  universal  suffrage  and  universal  amnesty.  I  am  looking  for  noth 
ing  in  the  political  way.  I  believe  myself  to  be,  as  you  say, '  a  thorough 
democrat,  according  to  the  true  definition  of  that  much-abused  term,'  and 
nothing  would  more  rejoice  my  heart  than  to  see  the  Democratic  party  re 
forming  its  policy  to  democratic  ideas  and  principles.  I  do  not  expect  it 
to  do  so  this  year ;  but  it  may,  for  this  is  a  day  of  revolution.  Whether  it 
does  so  or  not,  I  ask  nothing  from  it  or  from  any  other  party. 

"  Perhaps  there  is  little  use  in  writing  this  note.  In  the  tempest  there 
is  little  chance  of  hearing.  And  when  this  note  reaches  you,  the  shouts 
from  Chicago  will  be  filling  your  ears. 

"  So  let  me  end  by  assuring  you  that  I  am  in  no  whit  changed  in  my 
devotion  to  the  ideas  and  principles  which  you  have  approved,  and  that  I 
can  never  change  in  my  gratitude  for  your  friendship — not  past,  I  hope — 
and  for  the  support  with  which  you  have  aided  me  in  my  endeavors  to 
serve  the  country.  ..." 

To  Murat  Halstead,  Cincinnati. 

"WASHINGTON,  May  22,  1863. 

"  .  .  .  .  Your  note  is  just  received.  I  have  no  concern  with  third  par 
ties,  or  with  first  or  second  parties.  To  make  and  unmake  parties  is  the 
work  of  the  people.  Politicians  can't  do  it,  and  their  attempts  to  do  it  are 
always  failures.  .  .  . 

"  I  dare  say  I  may  have  said  that  proscription  of  the  Republican  Sen 
ators  would  be  '  likely '  or  *  sure '  to  result  in  the  organization  of  a  new 
party.  If  I  said  *  sure,'  I  was  too  fast.  If  I  said  '  likely,'  I  only  stated  what 
then  seemed  highly  probable.  I  did  not  refer  to  a  third  party,  however ; 
but  to  a  coming  together  upon  the  common  ground  of  opposition  to  the 
tyranny  of  the  dominant  majority  in  the  House  of  Representatives  of  all  not 
interested  in  its  support.  All  that  I  am  report(*d  to  have  said  about  myself 
and  the  Democratic  party  is  mere  bosh.  I  certainly  do  wish  that  the  Demo 
cratic  party  would  consent  to  be  democratic  ;  but  I  neither  seek  nor  want 
any  nomination.  I  have  neither  the  ambition  nor  the  vanity  which  some 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  NOMINATION.  583 

unambitious  and  very  modest  gentlemen  are  pleased  continually  to  ascribe 
to  me.  It  amazes  me  to  see  how  a  simple  endeavor  to  be  absolutely  impar 
tial  in  conducting  a  great  trial  is  magnified  into  lofty  virtue  on  one  side, 
and  stigmatized  as  political  recreancy  on  the  other.  I  suppose  there  is  no 
man  in  the  country  who  had  less  personal  interest  in  the  result  than  my 
self.  And  my  interest  as  a  citizen  was  balanced  between  hopes  of  good, 
in  the  event  of  conviction,  through  the  assured  success  of  reconstruction  on 
the  basis  of  equal  rights  for  all,  and  the  fear  of  evil  present  and  to  come, 
from  the  strain  to  which  in  the  same  event,  all  our  institutions  would  be 
subjected  in  consequence  of  the  transfer,  under  the  dictation  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  of  the  executive  power  from  the  President  elected  by 
the  people  to  the  President  pro  tempore  of  the  Senate." 

•  To  Hiram  Barney,  Esq.,  New  York. 

"WASHINGTON,  May  29, 1868. 

" .  .  .  .  You  are  right  in  what  you  say  about  my  views.  My  convic 
tions  are  fairly  represented  by  my  record,  and  I  cannot  change  them.  I  be 
lieve  I  could  refuse  the  throne  of  the  world  if  it  were  offered  me  at  the 
price  of  abandoning  the  cause  of  equal  rights  and  exact  justice  to  all  men. 
Indeed,  '  what  should  it  profit  a  man  to  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his 
own  soul  ? ' 

"  Nothing  would  gratify  me  more  than  to  see  the  Democratic  party  ad 
vance  its  standards  to  the  full  height  of  a  true  expression  of  democratic 
ideas.  What  a  grand  and  noble  organization  it  would  then  be !  I  hope  it 
will  make  some  advance  this  year ;  but  it  is  not  likely,  I  think,  to  take 
any  such  step  as  that  of  nominating  a  man  of  my  ideas  for  the  presidency 
without  seeking  so  to  trammel  him  that  he  would  be  as  unavailable  as  any 
mere  party  nominee. 

"  This  morning  I  had  an  unexpected  visit  from  a  very  prominent  Demo 
cratic  gentleman  of  Maryland.  He  expressed  a  strong  wish  that  my  name 
might  be  presented  for  the  suffrages  of  the  people,  and  was  anxious  that  it 
might  be  brought  forward  in  advance  of  the  meeting  of  the  convention, 
that  it  might  be  either  sanctioned  there  or  accepted  by  an  omission  of  the 
convention  to  make  any  nomination.  There  seems  to  be  an  intense  anxiety 
to  get  rid  of  military  domination,  military  commissions,  and  of  all  the  ten 
dencies  now  rife  toward  subversion  of  the  Executive  and  Judicial  Depart 
ments  of  the  Government ;  and  a  willingness  that  surprises  me  to  take  me 
with  my  known  views  on  the  question  of  equal  rights  without  regard  to 
race  or  color,  for  the  sake  of  those  other  objects  in  respect  to  which  my 
views  harmonize  with  theirs.  I  mentioned  to  this  gentleman  that  we  prob 
ably  disagreed  as  to  the  right  of  the  colored  people  to  vote,  and  his  man 
ner  even  more  than  his  words  showed  how  he  felt ;  and  yet,  with  all  his 
repugnance  to  universal  suffrage,  he  persisted  in  saying  that  he  believed 
my  nomination  at  this  time  was  the  very  best  thing  that  could  be  done  for 
the  country. 


584  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  Such  indications  as  that  of  this  visit,  and  very  many  such  that  reach 
me  from  various  parts  of  the  country,  certainly  surprise  me.  They  are  not 
sufficiently  numerous  to  excite  expectations  of  immediate  important  conse 
quences,  but  they  afford  ground  for  hope  that  a  change  is  going  on  in  the 
views  and  policy  of  the  Democratic  party  which  warrants  good  hopes  of 
the  future.  That  future  will  include  nothing  political  for  me,  but  much 
good  of  all  sorts  for  our  country.  ..." 

To  August  Belmont,  Esq.,  New  York. 

"  "WASHINGTON,  May  80,  1S68. 

"  ....  It  would  show  a  want  both  of  sensibility  and  sense  if  I  did 
not  reply  to  your  frank  and  generous  letter  of  yesterday  at  once  and  with 
out  reserve. 

"  For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  I  have  been,  in  my  political- 
views  and  sentiments,  a  Democrat ;  and  I  still  think  that,  upon  questions 
of  finance,  commerce,  and  administration  generally,  the  old  Democratic 
principles  afford  the  best  guidance. 

"  What  separated  me,  in  former  tunes,  from  both  parties  was  the  depth 
and  positiveness  of  my  convictions  on  the  slavery  question.  On  that  ques 
tion  I  thought  the  Democratic  party  failed  to  make  a  just  application  of 
democratic  principles,  and  regarded  myself  as  more  democratic  than  the 
Democrats.  .  .  . 

"  In  1849  I  was  elected  to  the  Senate  by  the  united  votes  of  the  Old- 
line  Democrats  and  the  Independent  Democrats,  and  subsequently  made 
earnest  efforts  to  bring  about  a  union  of  all  Democrats  on  the  ground  of 
the  limitation  of  slavery  to  the  States  in  which  it  then  existed  and  non 
intervention  with  slavery  in  those  States  by  Congress.  Had  that  union 
been  effected  it  is  my  firm  belief  that  the  country  would  have  escaped  the 
late  civil  war  and  all  its  evils.  I  wish  you  could  find  tune  to  read  a  letter 
of  mine  to  the  Democratic  Speaker  of  our  Ohio  House  of  Representatives 
written  at  that  time.  It  is  printed  in  the  Congressional  Globe  of  1849-'50, 
part  i.,  page  135,1  in  connection  with  a  speech  of  Mr.  Butler,  of  South  Caro 
lina,  and  it  will  give  a  clearer  idea  of  what  I  then  thought  and  still  think, 
than  I  can  convey  in  a  letter. 

"  The  slavery  question,  as  you  say,  is  now  settled.  It  has  received  a 
te*rrible  solution ;  but  it  has  a  successor  in  the  question  of  reconstruction, 
and  this  question  partakes  largely  the  nature  of  that. 

"  I  never  favored  interference  by  Congress  with  slavery  in  the  States ; 
but  as  a  war  measure  Mr.  Lincoln's  proclamation  of  emancipation  had  my 
hearty  assent ;  and  I  united,  as  a  member  of  his  Administration,  in  the 
pledge  it  made  to  maintain  the  freedom  of  the  enfranchised  people. 

"This  pledge  has  been  partly  redeemed  by  the  constitutional  amend 
ment  prohibiting  slavery  throughout  the  United  States;  but  its  perfect 

1  This  letter  will  be  found  on  page  101  of  this  volume.  It  is  addressed  to  John 
G.  Breslin. 


SUFFRAGE  AND  RECONSTRUCTION.  585 

fulfillment  requires,  in  my  judgment,  the  assurance  of  the  right  of  suffrage 
to  those  whom  the  Constitution  has  made  freemen  and  citizens. 

"  Hence  I  have  been  and  am  in  favor  of  so  much  of  the  reconstruction 
policy  of  Congress  as  bases  the  reorganization  of  the  State  Governments 
in  the  South  upon  universal  suffrage. 

"  I  do  not  doubt  the  authority  of  the  national  Government  under  that 
clause  of  the  Constitution  which  requires  the  United  States  to  guarantee 
to  each  State  in  the  Union  a  republican  form  of  government,  to  provide  for 
the  reSstablishment  of  such  governments  by  the  people  of  the  several  States 
whose  governments  were  disorganized  by  rebellion.  I  think  that  Presi 
dent  Johnson  was  right  in  regarding  the  Southern  States,  except  Virginia 
and  Tennessee,  as  being,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  without  governments, 
without  governors,  judges,  legislators,  or  other  State  functionaries;  but 
wrong  in  limiting,  by  his  reconstruction  proclamations,  the  right  of 
suffrage  to  whites  and  only  such  whites  as  had  the  qualifications  he  re 
quired. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  as  it  seems  to  me,  Congress  was  right  in  not  limit 
ing,  by  its  reconstruction  acts,  the  right  of  suffrage  to  whites ;  but  wrong 
in  the  exclusion  from  suffrage  of  certain  classes  of  citizens  and  all  unable 
to  take  its  prescribed  retrospective  oath,  and  wrong  also  in  the  establish 
ment  of  despotic  military  governments  for  the  States  and  in  authorizing 
military  commissions  for  the  trial  of  civilians  in  time  of  peace.  There 
should  have  been  as  little  military  government  as  possible ;  no  military 
commissions ;  no  classes  excluded  from  suffrage  ;  and  no  oath  except  one 
of  faithful  obedience  and  support  to  the  Constitution  and  laws,  and  of  sin 
cere  attachment  to  the  constitutional  Government  of  the  United  States. 

"But  it  has  been  and  is  impossible  to  get  these  reconstruction  acts 
amended ;  nor  is  it  desirable,  in  my  opinion,  to  delay  the  restoration  of 
these  States  to  their  proper  places  in  the  Union  under  the  constitutions 
recently  adopted  in  some  of  them  and  likely  soon  to  be  adopted  in  the 
others.  The  colored  people  of  the  South  are  unanimous  in  their  desire  for 
such  restoration,  because  these  constitutions  secure  to  them  the  right  of 
suffrage  and  thereby  the  means  of  self-protection  against  injustice.  And 
there  seems  no  reason  to  apprehend  that  any  class  of  white  citizens  will  be 
prejudiced  by  such  restoration. 

"  J  have  considerable  information  concerning  the  feelings  of  Southern 
colored  voters ;  and,  if  the  white  citizens  hitherto  prominent  in  affairs  will 
simply  recognize  their  right  of  suffrage  and  assure  them  against  future 
attempts  to  take  it  from  them,  I  am  sure  that  those  citizens  will  be  wel 
comed  back  to  their  old  lead  with  joy  and  acclamation.  Nor  do  I  doubt 
that  if  the  Democratic  party  will  give  such  assurance  in  any  way  that  they 
can  understand  and  rely  on,  a  majority  if  not  air  the  Southern  States  may 
be  carried  for  the  Democratic  candidates  at  the  next  election. 

"  I  am  glad  to  know  that  many  intelligent  Southern  Democrats  agree 
with  me  in  these  views,  and  are  willing  to  accept  universal  suffrage  and 


586  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

universal  amnesty  as  the  basis  of  reconstruction  and  restoration.  They 
see  that  the  shortest  way  to  revive  prosperity — possible  only  with  con 
tented  industry — is  universal  suffrage  now  and  universal  amnesty  and  re 
moval  of  all  disabilities  as  speedily  as  possible  through  the  action  of  the 
State  and  national  Governments. 

"  I  have  long  been  a  believer  in  the  wisdom  and  justice  of  securing  the 
right  of  suffrage  to  all  citizens.  It  is  the  best  guarantee  of  the  stability 
of  institutions  and  the  prosperity  of  communities.  My  views  of  this  sub 
ject  were  well  known  when  the  Democrats  elected  me  to  the  Senate  in 
1849.  It  was  also  known,  I  suppose,  that  I  had  no  desire  to  force  them 
into  premature  and  useless<  discussion,  but  was  quite  content  with  holding 
them  and  declaring  them  on  proper  occasions  as  my  personal  opinions 
without  making  them  or  having  opposite  opinions  made  a  political  test. 

"  I  have  said  too  much,  perhaps,  on  this  subject ;  but  I  could  not  hon 
orably  answer  such  a  letter  as  yours,  and  leave  any  room  for  misapprehen 
sion.  ...  I  am  no  believer  in  military  governments  for  any  of  the  States, 
nor  in  military  commissions  for  the  trial  of  civilians  in  time  of  peace ;  nor 
in  arbitrary  government  of  any  kind.  I  long  most  earnestly  for  the  re 
moval,  by  acts  of  genuine  kindness  and  sincere  good-will,  of  all  traces  of 
the  unkindness  and  the  ill-will  which  have  sprung  from  the  rebellion  and 
hinder  real  union  and  true  prosperity.  I  would  eradicate  if  possible  every 
root  of  bitterness.  I  want  to  see  the  Union  and  the  Constitution  reestab 
lished  in  the  affections  of  all  the  people.  And  I  think  that  the  initiative 
should  be  taken  by  the  successful  side  in  the  late  struggle.  Let  magna 
nimity  attend  success  and  benefits  console  defeat.  Toward  these  ends  I  am 
willing  to  do  all  I  can  in  office  and  out  of  office,  with  a  party  or  without 
a  party. 

"  I  have  now  answered  your  letter  as  I  think  I  ought  to  answer  it.  I 
beg  you  to  believe  me — for  I  say  it  in  all  sincerity — that  I  do  not  desire 
the  office  of  President  nor  a  nomination  for  it.  Nor  do  I  know  that,  with 
my  views  and  convictions,  I  am  a  suitable  candidate  for  any  party.  Of 
that  my  countrymen  must  judge.  If  they  think  fit  to  require  such  ser 
vices  as  I  can  render,  they  are,  without  doubt,  entitled  to  them.  If  they 
have  no  requisition  to  make  upon  me,  I  shall  be  entirely  content.  ..." 

To  James  Lyon,  Esq.,  Richmond. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  18,  1S69. 

"  ....  I  reply  with  as  little  delay  as  possible  to  your  kind  note  of 
the  16th. 

"  What  I  said  at  your  table  was  without  affectation.  I  do  not  desire  a 
nomination  for  the  presidency.  I  have  therefore  written  no  letters  for  pub 
lication,  for  such  letters  would  be  regarded  as  evidence  of  such  a  desire. 

"  In  conversation,  however,  and  in  some  private  letters,  my  views  have 
been  freely  stated  ;  and  I  have  no  objection  to  say  to  you  what  I  think  on 
the  topics  mentioned  in  your  letter ;  and  you  are  quite  at  liberty  to  quote 


AMNESTY  AND  SUFFRAGE.  587 

what  I  say  to  such  gentlemen  as  you  see  fit,  but  I  do  not  want  to  go  into 
print  at  this  time. 

"  And  first,  of  universal  suffrage.  I  am,  as  you  supposed,  in  favor  of 
it  as  the  best  security  of  popular  institutions,  and  the  surest  guarantee  of 
general  prosperity.  It  seems  to  me  especially  desirable  in  the  Southern 
States  to  insure  a  contented  and  industrious  laboring  population,  and  to 
remove  all  distrust  felt  by  the  colored  citizens  of  their  former  masters  and 
of  the  educated  classes  to  which  they  (the  masters)  generally  belong,  and 
in  this  way  bring  the  ability  "and  character  of  the  South  once  more  into 
the  lead.  But  while  this  is  my  personal  judgment,  I  welcome  gladly 
every  advance  toward  the  general  object  by  free  concessions  of  impartial, 
if  not  universal,  suffrage. 

"  Of  the  reference  of  the  suffrage  question  to  the  States,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  in  general  of  its  wisdom  and  expediency.  I  am  not  prepared, 
however,  to  say  that  Congress,  under  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  amend 
ments,  should  the  latter  be  ratified,  as  now  seems  certain,  will  not  have 
any  powers  in  relation  to  suffrage  in  the  States,  nor  can  I  say  that  in  those 
States  whose  governments  became  involved  in  the  war,  the  question  of 
restoration,  at  its  close,  could  not  be  properly  referred  to  the  whole  body 
of  citizens  without  distinction  of  color.  Whether  Virginia  was  one  of  the 
States  without  a  government,  when  the  war  ended,  in  which  the  national 
Government  was  not  bound  to  recognize  the  actual  as  a  valid  and  sub 
sisting  government,  may  well  be  questioned. 

"  Of  the  wisdom,  and  indeed  of  the  necessity  of  a  general  amnesty  and 
of  the  removal  of  all  disabilities  imposed  on  the  people  of  the  Southern 
States,  I  have  no  doubt  whatever.  Complete  reconciliation  between  those 
who  adhered  to  the  national  Government  and  those  who  sought  to  estab 
lish  an  independent  confederate  government,  is  indispensable  to  national 
tranquillity  and  prosperity,  and  the  policy  of  amnesty  and  removal  of 
disabilities  will  contribute  largely  to  this  reconciliation.  It  will,  more 
over,  bring  into  useful  puhlic  service  a  vast  amount  of  intellect,  character, 
and  patriotism,  now  excluded  from  it. 

"  The  restoration  of  all  the  States  to  the  Union,  with  the  abolition  of 
all  military  government  and  control,  should  take  place  as  speedily  as  pos 
sible.  It  never  seemed  to  me  necessary,  in  order  to  the  reorganization  of 
the  State  governments,  to  put  any  of  the  Southern  States  under  military 
government,  and  such  government  is  certainly  unwarranted  by  the  genius 
of  American  institutions.  And  much  more  even  are  military  commissions 
to  try  civilians  in  time  of  peace  to  be  condemned. 

"  I  am  exceedingly  anxious  for  the  restoration  of  prosperity,  and  its 
increase  beyond  all  former  example,  in  the  Southern  States.  It  is  my  firm 
belief  that  a  frank  and  full  recognition  by  the  educated  classes  of  the  col 
ored  citizens'  right  to  vote  will  prove  the  very  best  means  of  bringing 
about  this  result.  This  recognition  will  insure  a  speedy  general  amnesty 
and  the  removal  of  all  disabilities.  Suffrage  will  give  assurance  of  safety 
and  protection  to  labor ;  amnesty  will  provide  men  fit  for  public  trusts. 


588  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Can  there  be  any  thing  better  ?    "Will  not  patriots  bury  the  past,  recog 
nize  the  present,  and  provide  for  the  future  ?  .  .  .  " 

To  William  C.  Bryant,  New  York. 

"  WASHINGTON,  June,  19, 1868. 

"  .  .  .  .  The  movement  for  my  nomination  has  taken  me  entirely  by 
surprise,  and  I  cannot  even  now  persuade  myself  of  the  reality  of  it ;  or, 
rather,  I  do  not  think  it  will  develop  into  such  strength  as  will  produce 
any  important  result  in  the  action  of  the  convention  of  the  Fourth.  It  is 
pretty  obvious  that  a  large  number  of  the  Northern  Democrats  are  wearied 
of  the  formulas  under  which,  for  the  last  ten  years,  they  have  been  led  to 
defeat;  and  that  very  many  of  the  Southern  men  long  for  peace  and 
restoration  on  almost  any  terms  which  will  insure  to  them  amnesty  and 
complete  removal  of  disabilities,  and  which  are  not  in  themselves  dishon 
orable.  All  these  would  gladly  accept  me  as  a  candidate,  believing  that, 
through  the  election  of  a  citizen  holding  my  ideas  of  restoration,  on  the 
basis  of  universal  suffrage  and  universal  amnesty,  peace  and  prosperity 
would  be  most  certainly  restored  to  the  country,  and  the  party  s"o  estab 
lished  upon  true  Democratic  principles,  as  to  afford  just  hope  of  a  con 
tinued  ascendency,  unless  forfeited  by  corruption  and  maladministration 
hereafter. 

"  But  to  these  progressives  in  the  Democratic  party  a  large  body  of 
the  Democrats  are  very  hostile ;  and  these  anti-progressives  will,  most 
probably,  control  the  convention ;  and  another  period  of  four  years'  mi 
nority  will  probably  be  necessary  to  bring  the  progressives  into  the  as 
cendency. 

"  So  you  perceive  that  it  is  not  likely  to  be  at  all  in  my  power  to  exer 
cise  any  material  influence  upon  the  platform  to  be  adopted  next  month. 
Nobody  now,  I  am  glad  to  find,  expects  me  to  desert  the  original  applica 
tion  of  democratic  ideas  which  I  have  ever  labored  to  make  real  in  the 
Government.  This  application  might  be  sufficiently  assured  by  the  incor 
poration  into  the  platform  of  one  of  two  forms  of  expression — either  resto 
ration  on  the  basis  of  universal  suffrage  and  universal  amnesty,  without 
any  declaration,  one  way  or  the  other,  about  suffrage  in  the  States ;  or, 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  universal  suffrage  is  a  democratic  principle, 
the  application  of  which  is  to  be  left  in  the  States,  under  the  Constitu 
tion,  to  the  States  themselves,  without  saying  any  thing  more  about  resto 
ration,  except  to  declare  in  favor  of  general  amnesty  and  the  removal  of 
all  disabilities  on  account  of  insurrection.  Upon  a  platform  in  either  of 
these  forms  of  expression,  I  might,  I  suppose,  honorably  accept  a  nomina 
tion  ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  this  practical  settlement  of  the  question 
would  be  hailed  with  great  satisfaction  as  the  harbinger  of  restored  union, 
and  peace,  and  prosperity.  It  is  hardly  extravagant  to  say  that  such 
action  as  this  would  be  speedily  followed  by  a  large  advance  in  the  value 
of  property  throughout  the  South.  On  all  other  questions  there  is  no  sub- 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  CONVENTION.  589 

stantial  difference  between  me  and  other  Democrats  who  do  not  propose 
repudiation. 

"  I  do  not  expect  any  result  personal  to  myself  from  the  action  of  the 
Fourth-of-July  Convention.  If  any  comes,  it  will  surprise  me  not  less 
than  the  movement  which  has  already  taken  place.  The  movement  itself, 
however,  will  not  be  without  result.  It  has  shown  a  liberality  and  pro- 
gressiveness  of  sentiment  among  Democrats  which  cannot  fail  to  have  an 
auspicious  influence  upon  the  future ;  and  it  has  given  to  the  country  a 
better  knowledge  than  it  has  hitherto  had  of  my  true  character  and  senti 
ment,  and  will  enable  me  hereafter  to  speak  to  the  Southern  educated 
classes  on  the  great  questions  which  especially  concern  their  status  with 
freedom,  and  with  a  respectful  and,  very  often,  a  kindly  hearing.  It  may 
enable  me  in  this  way  to  do  as  much  real  good  as  I  could  do  in  a  higher 
position.  With  this  I  ought  to  be,  and  I  shall  be,  content.  ..." 

To  Colonel  Alexander  Long,  at  New  York. 

""WASHINGTON,  July  4,  1S68. 

"  .  .  .  .  My  self-respect  is  worth  more  to  me  than  fifty  presidencies. 
Without  the  nomination  I  shall  sleep  more  soundly  than  with  it.  To  sur 
render  my  consciousness  of  doing  right  by  binding  myself  in  advance  to, 
I  know  not  what,  is  simply  impossible  for  me.  If  it  were  possible,  it 
would  prove  me  unworthy  of  the  trust  and  confidence  of  my  country 
men.  ..." 

To  Colonel  John  D.  Van  Buren,  New  York. 

"  WASHINGTON,  July  5,  18C8. 

"  ....  I  have  never  in  my  life  bound  myself  to  the  support  of  un 
known  candidates  upon  an  unknown  platform,  nor  have  I  ever  asked  such 
promises  from  anybody. 

"  I  see  hi  the  Messager-Americain  of  to-day  that  the  Evening  Post  had  an 
article  last  evening,  intimating  some  apprehension  that  I  might  be  induced 
by  desire  for  the  nomination  to  pledge  myself  to  any  platform  and  to  any 
candidate.  I  would  not  on  any  account  forfeit  Mr.  Bryant's  good  opin 
ion.  Between  the  good  opinion  of  such  men  and  the  presidency  my  choice 
would  be  easily  made.  The  presidency  would  kick  the  beam  forthwith. 
And  I  do  not  want  even  to  seem  to  err  in  that  way.  ..." 

To  Mr.  Schuckers,  at  New  York. 

WASHINGTON,  July  6,  1863. 

"  .  .  .  .  You  know  how  little  I  have  desired  a  nomination,  and  how 
averse  I  have  been  to  making  any  effort  to  secure  it.  I  have  felt  all  along 
that  it  could  not  be  tendered  to  me  upon  any  platform  which  would  al 
low  good  hope  of  considerable  accessions  from  among  the  Republicans  ; 
and,  without  that  hope,  any  other  person  might  as  well  be  nominated  as 
me.  And  I  shall  feel  more  than  contented  with  the  memory  of  the  move 
ment  in  my  favor — so  spontaneous  and  so  remarkable,  though  without  re- 


590  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

suits.  No  matter  how  the  convention  goes,  this  manifestation,  without 
asking  any  modification  of  my  views  on  the  questions  of  suffrage  and 
debt — good  faith  to  the  laboring  masses,  white  and  black,  and  good  faith 
to  the  national  creditors :  this  manifestation,  I  say,  proves  a  vast  advance 
in  the  sentiments  of  the  party,  especially  of  its  younger  and  more  pro 
gressive  wing  :  and  if  I  were  a  little  younger  and  unembarrassed  by  con 
nection  with  the  court,  I  should  like  nothing  better  than  to  lead  this  wing 
to  ascendency  and  the  party  to  victory.  With  such  an  element  in  the 
party,  its  leadership  is  both  honorable  and  desirable.  ..." 

To  Colonel  John  D.  Van  Buren,  New  Tori;. 

"WASHINGTON,  July  8,  1868. 

".  .  .  .  I  have  seen  only  the  telegraphic  abstract  of  the  platform.  It  is, 
in  the  main,  very  good.  I  take  it  for  granted,  however,  that  it  contemplates 
no  action  by  the  General  Government  for  the  overthrow  of  governments  in 
any  States  from  which  Senators  and  Representatives  are  admitted  to  seats 
in  Congress,  and  I  must  not  be  understood  as  expressing  any  opinion  on 
questions  of  constitutional  law,  which  may  come  before  the  courts.  I  must 
add  that  I  shall  be  more  gratified  if  the  choice  of  the  convention  falls 
upon  either  of  the  distinguished  names  before  it,  than  if  it  falls  upon  my 
own.  ..." 

To  Mr.  Schuckers,  at  Bedford  Springs. 

"NABBAGAN9ETT,  July  20,  1868. 

" .  .  .  .  No  man  can  be  more  grateful  than  I  am  to  such  friends  as 
those  you  name ;  but  not  one  of  them,  I  am  sure,  would  desire  to  have  me 
commit  myself  to  any  thing  or  anybody  at  the  risk  of  my  personal  honor 
and  integrity.  My  nomination  was  desired  for  the  sake  of  bringing  the 
Democratic  party  into  a  just  and  generous  assertion  of  democratic  ideas, 
which  would  enable  it  to  command  success.  Except  as  the  representative 
of  such  ideas,  my  name  was  of  no  value  to  the  party  or  my  friends  in  it, 
and  unless  taken  as  the  representative  of  such  ideas,  the  nomination  would 
have  less  than  no  value  to  me.  I  want  this  understood,  and  I  want  it 
understood  also  that  my  position  removes  me  from  active  participation  in 
party  strife.  It  will  be  time  enough  for  me  to  determine  how  to  cast  my 
vote,  if  I  determine  to  vote  at  all,  when  it  shall  be  determined  whether  or 
not  General  Blair's  letter  represents  or  does  not  represent  the  purpose  of 
the  controlling  influences  in  the  Democratic  party,  to  unsettle  all  that  has 
been  settled  in  favor  of  universal  suffrage  by  the  new  constitutions  of  the 
Southern  States. 

"Under  all  the  pressure  which  preceded  the  convention,  I  steadily 
maintained  my  own  adhesion  to  the  doctrines  of  universal  suffrage  and  the 
recognition  of  the  new  constitutions  as  accomplished  facts.  I  cannot  now 
in  any  way  compromise  those  doctrines.  Joined  to  my  other  doctrine  of 
universal  amnesty,  they  are  doctrines  of  peace,  order,  contented  labor, 
completed  restoration  and  sure  prosperity  both  North  and  South.  .  .  .  r 


HIS  POSITION  IN  1848.  591 

To  John  Colyer,  Esq.,  New  York. 

"NABBAGAN8ETT,  August  25,  1863. 

" .  .  .  .  Some  time  ago  I  received  a  letter  from  you,  marked  by  so  ex 
cellent  a  spirit  that  I  felt  prompted  to  reply.  The  reply  has  been  delayed, 
however,  until  it  can  have  no  value,  except  as  an  assurance  that  I  am  not 
unmindful  of  what  good  men  write  me,  whether  in  commendation  or  cen 
sure. 

"  I  have  not  had  any  thought  of  going  into  a  third-party  movement. 
Nothing,  in  my  judgment,  has  lajtely  required  such  a  movement;  and  I 
know  too  well  the  labors  incident  to  political  organizations  to  wish  to 
have  any  thing  to  do  with  them,  except  upon  clear  convictions  of  duty. 
Besides,  I  must  now  leave  such  labors  to  younger  men. 

"  It  has  happened  to  me,  as  to  many  others,  to  have  my  name  mentioned 
in  connection  with  the  presidency ;  and  not  a  few  persons  have  thought 
fit  to  impute  to  me  an  exceeding  ambition  for  the  place.  Of  that  I  am  not 
myself  conscious,  though  it  is  quite  true  that  the  distinction  would  have 
been  a  most  gratifying  one,  and  that  the  opportunities  of  usefulness  would 
have  been  welcome,  notwithstanding  the  risks  of  failure.  But  I  have  never 
been  so  insensible  to  these  risks  as  to  be  at  all  troubled  in  mind  because 
political  conventions  and  the  people  have  preferred  others  to  myself.  I 
am  entirely  satisfied  now  with  the  fact  that  I  am  not  a  candidate,  and  the 
certainty  that  I  never  shall  be. 

"  The  hard  names  to  which  you  refer  as  so  freely  bestowed  upon  me, 
affect  me  little.  I  espoused  the  cause  of  equal  rights  and  exact  justice  for 
all  men  when  few  of  those  who  now  censure  me  most,  were  willing  to 
maintain  that  colored  Americans  had  any  rights  which  white  Americans 
were  bound  to  respect.  To  that  cause  I  have  steadily  adhered.  As  God  has 
given  me  opportunity  I  have  endeavored  to  be  useful  to  my  countrymen 
in  the  reform  of  the  currency  and  in  other  things  not  directly  connected 
with  the  fundamental  principles  of  human  rights.  In  my  public  service,  I 
have  been  the  object  of  much  assault;  but  I  do  not  remember  that  I  have 
assailed  anybody.  Where  I  could  not  approve  I  have  contented  myself 
with  disapproval  without  imputing  bad  motives  or  unworthy  purposes. 

k'  So  I  expect  to  go  on.  I  cannot  and  do  not  approve  of  much  which 
has  had  the  sanction  of  the  Republican  party ;  and  there  is  much  also 
which  has  the  sanction  of  the  Democratic  party  that  I  cannot  approve. 
My  faith  in  human  rights  makes  me  a  Democrat,  and  I  cannot  follow  any 
lead  which  separates  nie  from  my  principles. 

"  I  therefore  at  present  prefer,  and  I  hope  ever  hereafter  to  prefer,  an 
independent  position  ;  free  to  approve  and  to  vote  as  I  think  right.  I  do 
not  blame  those  who  by  circumstances  or  convictions  think  themselves 
obliged  to  strict  party  adhesion.  I  have  felt  this  obligation  myself,  when 
organization  seemed  indispensable  to  the  maintenance  of  principles  which 
I  thought  of  paramount  importance.  All  I  mean  to  say  is,  that  at  present 
neither  of  the  existing  political  organizations  seems  to  me  thus  indispen- 


592          LEFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

sable,  more  than  the  other,  in  any  commanding  degree.  Thanking  you  for 
your  letter,  I  beg  you  to  receive  this  reply  in  the  same  spirit  of  good-will 
as  that  in  which  you  wrote.  ..." 

To  Colonel  A.  J.  H.  Duganne,  New  York. 

"  NABBAGANSETT,  September  21, 1868. 

"  ....  I  received  some  days  ago  your  kind  note  accompanying  an  in 
vitation  to  address  a  Republican  meeting  in  New  York.  My  great  esteem 
and  respect  for  you,  and  the  fear  that  an  omission  to  reply  to  your  note 
may  be  interpreted  wrongly,  induce  me  to  write  a  few  lines. 

"  There  are  few  if  any  instances  in  our  history  in  which  a  judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court  has  addressed  a  political  assemblage ;  and  the  precedent 
thus  established  is  one  which  I  am  hardly  at  liberty,  if  even  disposed,  to 
disregard.  I  could  not,  therefore,  accept  the  invitation  wThich  accom 
panied  your  note,  even  if  I  were  otherwise  free  to  do  so. 

"  But  I  am  not.  I  cannot  approve  in  general  what  the  Republican 
party  has  done  and  this  is  not  the  time  for  discriminations  in  a  public  ad 
dress.  I  hold  my  old  faith  in  universal  suffrage,  in  reconstruction  upon  that 
basis,  in  universal  amnesty,  and  in  inviolate  public  faith ;  but  I  do  not  be 
lieve  in  military  governments  for  American  States,  nor  in  military  commis 
sions  for  the  trial  of  American  citizens,  nor  in  the  subversion  of  the  execu 
tive  and  judicial  departments  of  the  general  government  by  Congress,  no 
matter  how  patriotic  the  motive  may  be.  This  is  enough  to  explain  what 
discriminations  I  should  be  compelled  to  make.  The  action  of  the  two 
parties  has  obliged  me  to  resume  with  my  old  faith  my  old  position — nul- 
lius  addictus  jurare  in  verba  majestri — that  of  Democrat,  by  the  grace  of 
God,  free  and  independent.  ..." 

To  Colonel  William  Brown,  Nicholasmlle,  Kentucky. 

"WASHINGTON,  September  29, 1868. 

" ....  I  regretted  nothing  in  your  speech  except  its  tone  and  tenor 
concerning  Governor  Seymour.  I  was  sure,  when  the  platform  was  adopted 
and  interpreted  on  the  vital  question  of  the  stability  or  forcible  subversion 
of  the  accomplished  work  of  reconstruction,  by  the  letter  and  nomination 
of  General  Blair,  that  nearly  all  the  Republicans  and  very  many  of  the 
Conservatives,  who  were  anxious  to  unite  with  the  Democrats  in  opposition 
to  the  extreme  measures  of  the  Republican  leaders,  would  be  constrained 
to  the  support  of  General  Grant.  But  it  was  not,  and  is  not,  my  belief  that 
Governor  Seymour  desired  to  have  this  issue  made,  or  that  he  wished  the 
nomination  for  himself.  I  have  seen  nothing  in  his  action  which  makes 
me  question  the  sincerity  of  his  declared  wishes  for  a  different  issue,  and 
for  another  candidate.  Hardly  any  man  would  have  resisted  the  ap 
proaches  made  to  him  by  a  convention  which  seemed  to  be,  and  perhaps 
was,  unanimous,  or  nearly  so,  in  demanding  his  consent  to  his  own  nomi 
nation.  That  he  did  not  resist  may  be  deplored  on  public  grounds  ;  but 


THE  LIBERAL  REPUBLICAN  CONVENTION.  593 

my  friends  should  not  complain.  I  had  no  claim  on  a  Democratic  conven 
tion,  representing  what  may  be  called  the  old-line  Democracy.  The  nom 
ination  was  proposed  only  as  a  means  of  uniting  in  support  of  the  ticket 
those  in  general  sympathy  with  the  Democracy  on  issues  that  have  arisen 
since  the  war,  but  who  were  as  much  as  ever  in  favor  of  securing  to  the 
enfranchised  people  all  the  rights  of  men  and  citizens,  as  the  best,  if  not 
the  only  means  of  restoring  order  and  prosperity  to  the  South.  .  .  . 

"  Please  take  this  as  a  slight  expression  of  what  I  said  in  my  former  let 
ter  and  as  explaining  why  I  cannot  consent  to  have  the  extract  from  that 
letter  which  you  quote  published.  I  know  that  Governor  Seymour  and 
his  friends,  who  were  also  my  friends,  feel  much  hurt  by  what  you  said 
of  him,  and  what  others  of  my  friends  have  said,  and  are  inclined  to  regard 
me  as  in  some  sort  responsible  for  those  sayings  ;  and  the  publication  of 
that  extract,  disconnected  from  what  I  wrote  of  him,  would  confirm  that 
impression.  So  I  prefer  to  have  nothing  published  ;  and  you  will,  there 
fore,  treat  what  I  have  heretofore  written,  and  what  I  now  write,  as  strictly 
private.  ..." 

To  Demarest  Lloyd,  Washington. 

"NOBTHWOOD,  N.  H.,  August  14,  1872. 

"  .  .  .  .  You  may  remember  that,  in  our  walks  to  and  fro  on  the  portico 
at  Edgewood,  I  said  to  you  more  than  once  that  I  would  like  to  see  Mr. 
Greeley  nominated.  Since  1848  it  has  been  my  earnest  desire  to  see  the 
Democratic  party  purged  from  the  taint  of  slavery,  and  applying  demo  - 
cratic  principles  boldly  and  thoroughly  to  all  political  questions.  The 
adoption  of  the  Cincinnati  platform  realizes  that  desire,  and  the  nomina 
tion  of  Greeley  is  a  pledge  of  its  sincerity  which  his  election  will  con 
firm.  ..." 

To  Demarest  Lloyd,  Washington. 

"NABRAGANBETT,  E.  I.,  September  15,  1872. 

"  ....  As  to  political  matters,  I  have  by  no  means  lost  heart,  though 
results  so  far  do  not  answer  my  hopes.  The  nomination  was,  in  itself,  the 
best  that  could  be  made  ;  but  it  was  an  experiment,  and  a  bold  one.  A 
Free-Trade  convention  nominated  the  ablest,  after  Mr.  Carey,  of  American 
writers  in  support  of  protection ;  a  Eepublican  convention  nominated  a 
full  Republican  ticket  for  Democratic  support,  without  which  almost 
unanimously  given,  success  was  impossible ;  a  Democratic  convention,  de 
parting  from  all  party  usages,  nominated  for  Democratic  support  Eepubli 
can  candidates  1  May  it  not  well  be  said  that  it  was  an  experiment,  and  a 
bold  one  ?  To  me,  knowing  Mr.  Greeley  as  I  do,  and  feeling  in  him  the 
confidence  I  do,  it  would  be  a  pleasure  to  vote  for  him.  I  can  postpone 
all  differences  in  the  full  confidence  that,  practically,  his  administration 
will,  in  no  respect,  fundamentally  clash  with  my  views,  while,  in  the  im 
portant  matters  of  currency,  amnesty,  and  reform,  it  will  thoroughly  har 
monize  with  them.  It  is  not  surprising  that  others  think  and  will  act 
differently.  ..." 
38 


CHAPTEK    LII. 

MB.    CHASE'S   RELIGION — HIS    SIMPLE    HABITS — HOSPITALITY — HIS 

MODESTY LOVE  OF  TRUTH  AND  OF  JUSTICE — HIS  VAST  LABOR 

DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  TREASURY  DEPARTMENT ORGANIZA 
TION  OF  NEW  BUREAUS RULE  ABOUT  WOMEN — PERSONAL 

CHARACTERISTICS HIS   INTEREST    IN    MILITARY    MATTERS — 

FINANCIAL  BELIEFS  AND  ACCOMPLISHMENT — POLITICAL  ACTION 
AS  A  MEMBER  OF  THE  CABINET — AS  A  LAWYER — PER 
SONAL HIS  PROPERTY. 

"1  rPOJST  faith  in  Almighty  God,  and  a  belief  in  account- 
vJ  ability  in  another  world  for  the  acts  done  in  this,  and 
those  other  beliefs  which  Protestant  Christians  hold  to  be  fun 
damental,  Mr.  Chase  founded  the  maxims  and  the  conduct  of 
his  life.  He  shrank  from  all  ostentation  in  respect  of  his  reli 
gion,  and  rarely  spoke  of  it,  and  indeed  not  very  often  of  reli 
gious  subjects  at  all,  and  then  always  with  an  earnest  and  perfect 
ly  simple  reverence ;  but  it  influenced  him  in  all  his  acts,  both 
public  and  private. 

He  was  born  in  the  Episcopal  Church,  and  lived  and  died  in 
it,  though  his  beliefs  were,  in  the  main,  of  the  school  of  Calvin. 
However,  he  was  utterly  free  from  any  thing  like  intolerance, 
and  had  a  deep  aversion  to  disputatiousness  about  matters  in 
which  religion  was  concerned.  He  one  day  read  to  me,  as  ex 
pressive  of  his  own  feelings,  the  words  of  John  "Wesley :  "  I  am 
weary  to  hear  opinions.  My  soul  loathes  this  frothy  food. 
Give  me  solid  and  substantial  religion ;  give  me  an  humble, 
gentle  lover  of  God  and  man,  a  man  full  of  mercy  and  good 
fruits,  without  partiality  and  without  hypocrisy ;  a  man  laying 
himself  out  in  the  work  of  faith,  the  patience  of  hope,  the  labor 


RELIGION  AND  HABITS.  595 

of  love.  Let  my  soul  be  with  these  Christians,  wheresoever 
they  are,  and  whatsoever  opinions  they  are  of."  Nevertheless, 
he  was  zealous  for  what  he  believed  to  be  fundamental  truth  ; 
and  once  wrote  Theodore  Parker,  expressing  his  deep  "  regret 
that  on  the  great  question  of  the  Divine  origin  of  the  Bible  and 
the  Divine  nature  of  Christ,"  the  views  of  Mr.  Parker  "  were  so 
little  in  harmony  with  those  of  almost  all  who  labor  in  the  great 
cause  of  human  enfranchisement  and  progress."  All  his  years 
he  was  a  quiet,  unobtrusive  worker  in  religious  and  benevolent 
enterprises,  and  gave  to  them  freely.  He  did  not  confine  his 
gifts  to  Protestant  denominations,  but  with  a  large  and  sincere 
admiration  for  the  Catholic  Church,  gave  to  Catholic  charities 
also. 

II.  He  was  simple  and  inexpensive  in  his  habits,  and  dressed 
with  unvarying  plainness.  He  disliked  display  of  all  kinds,  and 
avoided  crowds  and  noise,  and  preferred  his  home  and  library 
to  all  other  places.  He  was  habitually  grave  and  reserved  in 
demeanor ;  he  did  not  often  laugh,  and  had  but  a  small  appre 
ciation  of  humor  ;  he  sometimes  told  a  story,  but  rarely  without 
spoiling  it.  He  was  fond  of  hospitality,  and  while  he  was  Sec 
retary  of  the  Treasury  kept  an  expensive  establishment.  It  was 
a  rare  occasion  upon  which  he  did  not  have  at  his  table  others 
than  the  members  of  his  own  household.  The  consequence  was, 
that  when  he  retired  from  office  he  found  himself  in  debt, 
and  was  compelled  to  sell  real  estate  in  Ohio  to  make  up  the  de 
ficiency  between  income  from  private  sources  and  his  salary, 
and  the  outgo  incident  upon  a  position,  the  dignity  of  which 
he  thought  it  his  duty  to  support  even  at  a  personal  loss. 
However,  he  cared  very  little  for  the  mere  physical  enjoyments 
of  the  table,  but  was  fond  of  the  table-talk  ;  and,  if  it  may  be 
so  expressed,  had  a  happy  dinner-table  faculty,  for,  though  men 
were  not  generally  at  ease  in  his  presence,  they  were  perfectly  so 
then.  He  was  pure  in  thought  and  speech  ;  ribaldry  in  word 
and  manner  were  alike  hateful  to  him ;  and  men  felt  this  in 
stinctively,  and  rarely  offended  in  this  respect  in  his  presence, 
and  he  seldom  had  occasion  to  reprove  any  one,  though  when 
the  occasion  did  arise  he  was  prompt  and  decisive  without  af 
fectation  or  prudery!  He  hated  profanity,  too.  "  He  must  be  a 
bold  man  who  could  swear  twice  in  his  presence,"  writes  Dema- 


596  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

rest  Lloyd, 1  "  for  the  rebuke  of  his  angry  eye  would  shame  the 
coolest  or  most  flippant  visitor  into  silence." 

III.  Modesty3  was  a  conspicuous  element  in  his  character. 
u  Those  who  believe  that  the  greatest  men  are  most  sensible  of 
their  own  defects,  will  be  glad  to  think,"  says  the  same  writer 
from  whom  I  have  just  quoted,  "  that  Mr.  Chase's  modesty  was 
one  of  the  signs  of  his  greatness.  There  was  no  subject  about 
which  he  talked  less  than  himself ;  he  rarely  or  never  referred  to 

1  "Home-Life  of  Salmon  Portland  Chase,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  November,  1873. 

8  He  constantly  under-estimated  himself  and  his  public  services.  A  notable 
instance  of  this  happened  when  some  gentlemen  in  Baltimore  proposed  to  present 
him  a  very  handsome  house  and  grounds.  He  expressed  his  grateful  appreciation 
of  their  friendship  and  intention,  but  very  courteously  declined  the  offer.  However, 
he  did  accept  Rembrandt  Peale's  magnificent  bust-portrait  of  Chief-Justice  Marshall, 
presented  to  him  by  sixty  prominent  citizens  of  New  York,  in  1867.  But  he  re 
garded  this  more  as  a  public  trust  than  as  a  private  gift,  and,  by  will,  bequeathed  it 
to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States ;  and  it  hangs  in  the  court-room  (the  old 
Senate-chamber)  at  Washington.  This  noble  picture  was  accompanied  by  an  ex 
ceedingly  interesting  historical  memorandum,  which  I  append  : 

"  This  portrait  of  Chief-Justice  Marshall  was  painted  from  life,  by  Rembrandt 
Peale,  nine  years  before  the  death  of  the  great  jurist.  It  bears  the  signature  of  the 
artist,  with  the  date  of  execution,  and  has  never  been  copied.  It  is  doubtless  the 
last  portrait  of  the  Chief-Justice.  The  following  history  of  the  painting  is  in  the 
handwriting  of  Mr.  Peale :  *  Washington,  April  21,  1858.  After  my  portrait  of 
Washington  was  placed  in  the  Senate-chamber,  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Speaker,  in 
a  good  light,  on  a  projecting  angle  of  the  cornice,  it  appeared  to  me  desirable  to 
have  a  companion -picture  on  the  left-hand  corner.  I  therefore  painted  a  portrait 
of  Chief-Justice  Marshall,  as  the  most  suitable.  The  picture  corresponded  with  that 
of  Washington,  being  a  bust-portrait  within  an  oval  of  massive  stone-work.  Wash 
ington's  was  encircled  with  the  oak-leaf;  Marshall's  with  the  palm  and  olive :  the 
key-stone  in  "Washington's  being  the  Phidian  head  of  Jupiter  ;  in  Marshall's  the  head 
of  Solon :  the  motto  in  Washington's  Patrice  Pater,  and  in  Marshall's  fiat  Justitia? 

"  The  portrait  of  Washington  being  afterward  removed  to  a  central  position,  and 
placed  in  the  dark,  high  over  the  Speaker's  chair,  I  indulged  in  the  thought  that  my 
portrait  of  Marshall  might  find  an  honorable  location  in  the  Supreme  Court ;  but, 
perceiving  that  the  room  was  small  and  unsuitable,  I  never  mentioned  my  idea,  and 
took  no  steps  to  dispose  of  the  picture." 

A  short  time  before  his  death,  Mr.  Peale  deposited  this  picture  in  the  State 
Library  at  Richmond,  whence  it  was  sent  by  Governor  Letcher  and  received  in  New 
York  in  February,  1861,  not  long  before  the  secession  of  Virginia  and  the  com 
mencement  of  the  hostilities  of  the  rebellion,  and  thus  narrowly  escaped  confisca 
tion  and  possibly  destruction. 

The  reader  will  observe  that  Mr.  Peale's  modestly-indulged  thought,  that  his 
picture  might  find  an  honorable  location  in  the  Supreme-Court  room,  has  been  real 
ized  in  a  somewhat  curious  way.  The  donors  to  Mr.  Chase  paid  the  heirs  of  Mr. 
Peale  $3,000  for  the  picture. 


HIS  LOVE  OF  TRUTH.  597 

himself  or  his  history  in  any  way.  There  have  been  few  men, 
with  so  much  to  remember,  so  little  given  to  reminiscence. 
Kot  only  would  he  seldom  volunteer  recollections,  but  it  re 
quired  skill  even  to  draw  them  from  him.  \  His  modesty  as  to 
the  accuracy  of  his  judgment  led  him  always  to  speak  carefully, 
and  with  provisos,  wrhere  men  of  a  tenth  of  his  intellectual 
weight  were  dogmatic.  It  showed  itself  as  much  in  his  frank 
ness  in  confessing  lack  of  knowledge  of  various  subjects  as  in 
any  thing.  He  had  none  of  that  pretentiousness  which  claims 
all  knowledge  as  its  own.  Even  when  questioned  on  subjects 
with  which  he  might  be  expected  to  be  familiar,  his  plain  an 
swer  was,  again  and  again,  *  I  don't  know.'  r  But  this  frank 
"  I  don't  know  "  was  largely  due  also  to  a  scrupulous  adherence 
to  truth  even  in  trifles.  Mr.  Chase  never  said  what  he  did  not 
believe ;  he  rarely  made  promises,  and  he  made  none  that  he 
did  not  fulfill  if  it  were  humanly  possible  to  do  so.  Every  one 
knew  this  ;  and  hence  it  was  that  men  sometimes  sought  to  im 
pose  upon  him  by  claiming  promises  he  never  had  made.  Soon 
after  he  became  Secretary,  he  found  it  necessary  to  keep  a  brief 
record  of  visitors,  in  order  to  guard  against  impostors  of  this 
kind.  The  names  of  callers,  unless  official  ones,  were  noted 
down  in  a  book  kept  for  the  purpose,  with  the  date  of  the  call 
and  its  object.  If  any  promise  was  made,  it  was  carefully  and 
exactly  stated.  This  proved  an  efficient  safeguard ;  though,  pos 
sessing  an  excellent  memory,  Mr.  Chase  was  not  likely  to  be 
often  deceived.  However,  he  preferred  the  certainty  of  the 
record.  He  did  not  equivocate  even  in  the  commonest  of  equiv 
ocations,  that  of  not  being  at  home  to  unwelcome  visitors.  I 
knew  him  to  border  upon  an  equivocation  once,  and  once  only, 
while  he  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  had  the  frank 
ing  privilege.  A  gentleman  came  in  one  day  and  asked  him 
to  frank  a  letter.  Mr.  Chase  did  not  frank  even  his  own  pri 
vate  correspondence,  but  paid  the  postage  by  stamps ;  and  he 
was  both  surprised  and  annoyed  by  this  request.  He  did  not 
refuse,  but  what  he  did  was  this :  he  said,  "  Leave  your  let 
ter,  and  I  will  see  that  it  is  sent."  The  significance  of  the 
answer  attracted  the  gentleman's  notice,  but  he  was  too  much 
embarrassed  to  ask  for  the  return  of  his  letter.  After  he  was 
gone,  Mr.  Chase  put  a  stamp  upon  it.  He  did  not  like  any  thing 


598  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

which,  involved  deceit,  even  though  it  was  in  the  nature  of  a 
"  pious  "  one.  When  the  Metropolitan  Methodist  Church,  at 
Washington,  was  being  built,  an  arrangement  was  made  by 
which  Daniel  Drew,  a  gentleman  of  admitted  extraordinary 
piety  in  New  York,  paid  a  contribution  of  ten  thousand  dol 
lars  toward  it.  Five  thousand  were  set  down  as  the  gift  of 
General  Grant,  and  five  thousand  as  that  of  Mr.  Chase,  but  Mr. 
Chase  wrote  in  his  own  hand,  after  his  signature,  "  paid  through 
the  liberality  of  Daniel  Drew,"  for  it  was  not  right,  he  said, 
that  he  should  be  credited  with  giving  what  he  had  not  given, 
and  what  he  could  not  afford  to  give,  even  to  what  was  un 
doubtedly  a  worthy  object.  Others  were  not  so  scrupulous, 
however,  and  it  was  printed  all  over  the  country  that  he  had 
subscribed  five  thousand  dollars,  nothing  being  said  of  the  fact 
that  Daniel  Drew  had  paid  the  money ;  which  Mr.  Chase  did 
not  like,  and  was  more  than  half -minded  to  rebuke.  It  can 
never  be  known  how  much  of  his  success  in  financial  matters, 
during  the  first  few  months  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  presidency,  was 
due  to  confidence  inspired  among  capitalists  by  faith  in  the 
absolute  integrity  of  his  word.  An  instance  of  this  happened 
in  November,  1861.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  depression  about 
war  progress  even  at  that  early  date.  Much  apprehension  pre 
vailed  that  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  would  go  into  winter 
quarters.  At  a  meeting  of  capitalists  in  New  York,  about  the 
middle  of  that  November,  Mr.  Chase  said  that  no  such  appre 
hension  need  be  entertained  ;  that  the  war  would  be  prosecuted 
with  prompt  and  decisive  energy.  This  statement  was  every 
where  received  with  confidence,  for  the  reason  that  Mr.  Chase 
had  made  it,  and  there  was  everywhere  a  revival  of  hope  and  ex 
pectation  ;  which  were  both  disappointed,  however,  but  through 
no  fault  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

IY.  To  this  love  of  truth  Mr.  Chase  joined  love  of  justice. 
He  had  a  swift  and  towering  temper  which  sometimes  mastered 
him,  notwithstanding  a  constant  habit  of  watchfulness  and  re 
pression.  He  was  at  all  times  a  man  of  commanding  presence, 
but  when  he  gave  way  to  anger,  which,  however,  was  not  often, 
his  was  a  front  of  majesty;  and  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  men  fled  from  his  presence,  as  lesser  animals  take  flight 
before  a  lion.  He  was  irritable  under  interruption  when  em- 


HIS  HABITS  OF  LABOR.  599 

ployed  upon  matters  requiring  concentration  of  thought.  The 
consequence  was,  that  he  sometimes  perpetrated  that  sort  of 
injustice  which  is  commonly  called  "  snubbing."  In  these 
moods  he  was  no  respecter  of  persons.  The  Secretary  of  "War, 
or  a  Senator,  or  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  or 
a  clerk,  was  equally  likely  to  be  the  object  of  his  wrath.  He 
offended  many  in  this  way ;  but  no  man  was  ever  more  swift 
to  repentance  than  Mr.  Chase,  nor  more  prompt  and  ample  in 
reparation;  and  not  a  few  were  almost  reconciled  that  they 
had  suffered  at  his  hands,  so  full  and  complete  was  the  amende. 
The  humblest  servant  in  his  household,  the  least  of  all  the  em 
ployes  who  was  his  subordinate,  wras  sure  of  an  instant  and  pa- 
tieiit  hearing  if  the  complaint  was  that  he  had  been  unjust.  One 
evening  he  spoke  with  great  severity  to  a  messenger  who  was 
physically  unable  to  do  what  the  Secretary  had  directed.  The 
lad  bore  his  anger  without  complaint,  but  two  days  afterward, 
just  in  the  dusk  of  evening,  Mr.  Chase  sent  for  him  and  con 
fessed  the  wrong.  There  was  a  kindly  dignity  in  his  manner  at 
such  times,  a  noble  humility,  which  won  the  heart  and  almost 
made  one  wish  that  the  offense  might  be  repeated. 

Y.  Mr.  Chase  was  an  indomitable  laborer.  His  life  was  one 
of  incessant  work.  His  power  of  prolonged  and  sustained  ap 
plication  was  extraordinary.  He  allowed  himself  no  rest,  but 
applied  all  his  faculties,  mental  and  physical,  with  a  merciless 
and  relentless  activity  that  near  and  watchful  friends  well  knew 
must  sooner  or  later  destroy  him.  He  was  not  content  with  the 
prompt  and  faithful  performance  of  his  own  duties,  but,  like 
Lord  Palmerston,  he  performed  many  which  properly  belonged 
to  subordinates.  He  left  nothing  to  be  done  to-morrow  that 
could  be  done  to-day.  He  was  prompt  in  the  fulfillment  of  all 
engagements.  He  tolerated  no  slovenly  work  and  no  slovenly 
worker.  He  was  critical  in  all  that  concerned  neatness,  and  ex 
acting  in  all  that  concerned  accuracy.  He  carefully  read  every 
paper  that  came  to  him  for  signature.  He  never  attached  his 
name  to  a  letter,  or  a  Treasury  warrant,  or  any  document  of  any 
kind,  public  or  private,  the  history  of  which  he  did  not  fully 
know.  He  allowed  but  little  exercise  of  authority  by  subor 
dinates  ;  acquainted  himself  with  all  the  details  of  his  office, 
and  supervised  every  thing  and  directed  every  thing.  In  a  word, 


600  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

he  applied  himself  beyond  all  just  use  of  his  powers.  "  ]N"eces- 
sitas  quod  cogit  defendit,"  says  Dr.  Johnson  in  his  "Life  of 
Pope ; "  "  that  may  be  lawfully  done  which  cannot  be  forborne. " 
The  warnings  of  friends  were  vain  ;  he  persisted  till  his  frame, 
strong  and  powerful  as  it  was,  could  endure  no  longer,  and  the 
stroke  which  left  him  a  ruin — a  ruin  noble  and  stately,  it  is  true, 
but  still  a  ruin — came  at  last. 

VI.  The  labors  performed  by  Mr.  Chase  in  the  Treasury 
Department  were  prodigious.     Very  few  persons  have  any  just 
conception  of  the  magnitude  of  that  great  establishment.     Be 
sides  the  work  of  providing  ways  and  means  for  the  support  of 
the  army  and  the  navy,  and  the  civil  list — of  itself,  in  a  time  of 
war,  sufficient  to  tax  the  best  energies  of  a  laborious  statesman — 
is  that  of  supervising  and  directing  its  internal  machinery.     A 
most  perplexing  and  thankless  task  connected  with  this  internal 
management  is  that  of  dispensing  the  department  patronage, 
and  this  was  especially  so  during  Mr.  Lincoln's  first  administra 
tion^5   In  the  halls  and  anterooms  applicants  for  places  con 
gregated  daily  by  tens  and  scores.    To  meet  the  demands  they 
made  upon  the  Secretary's  time  was  an  oppressive  duty  from 
which  there  was  small  chance  of  escape.    Thousands  made  these 
personal  appeals,  and  other  thousands  sent  appeals  in  writing. 
Cabinet-officers,  Senators,  representatives,  governors  of  States, 
local  politicians,  clergymen,  and  personal  friends,  came  to  press 
or  oppose  appointments.     It  is  within  strict  truth  to  say  that 
Mr.  Chase  was  "  interviewed  "  by  ten  thousand  appli cants,  and 
passed  upon  fifty  thousand  applications  during  three  and  a  quar 
ter  years ;  and  the  number  who  came  on  behalf  of  friends  was 
incomputable.     This  bestowal  of  patronage  was  the  most  disa 
greeable  of  all  his  public  duties^ 

VII.  In  1861,  the  Treasury  Department  contained  fourteen 
separate  bureaus.     First  was  that  of  the  Secretary,  and  next  in 
importance  that  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  United  States.     There 
were  five  bureaus  called,  respectively,  the  offices  of  the  Solicitor, 
of  the  Register,  of  the  Commissioner  of  Customs,  of  the  Light- 
House  Board,  of  Construction ;  and  there  were  those  of  two 
Controllers  and  six  Auditors.     Of  the  details  of  the  business 
of  each  of  these  Mr.  Chase  informed  himself  with  an  astonish 
ing  degree  of  accuracy.     Their  duties  comprised  a  charge  of  all 


METHODS  OF  LABOR.  601 

the  public  moneys  and  of  the  public  accounts,  including  those  of 
the  War,  of  the  Navy  and  Post-Office  Departments,  and  the  care 
of  all  the  custom-houses,  mints,  and  assay-offices,  of  the  light 
houses,  of  the  public  buildings  of  the  United  States,  of  the  reve 
nue  marine,  of  the  marine  hospitals,  of  the  coast  survey,  and  the 
inspection  of  steamboats.  Four  new  bureaus  were  organized 
under  his  administration ;  those  of  the  Controller  of  the  Cur 
rency,  of  the  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue,  of  the  In 
ter-State  Commerce,  and  of  that  branch  of  the  Secretary's 
office  called  the  Currency  Printing  Division.  In  respect  of  one 
of  these — that  of  the  Inter-State  Commerce — there  were  no  pre 
cedents  anywhere ;  but  they  all  emerged  from  Mr.  Chase's  plastic 
hand  in  a  state  of  great  completeness  at  the  very  outset  of  their 
operations.  Two  of  them  had  officers  all  over  the  country ;  two 
of  them  were  more  restricted  in  their  spheres  of  action  ;  but  all 
required,  in  order  to  successful  working,  a  careful  attention  to 
details  both  large  and  small.  They  worked  harmoniously  and 
efficiently  from  the  beginning.  It  is  not  specially  wonderful, 
therefore,  that  the  work  of  organization  performed  by  Mr. 
Chase  excited  Mr.  Fessenden's  great  astonishment. 

YIII.  Mr.  Chase's  methods  of  labor  while  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  were  characteristic.  He  arose  in  summer  usually  at 
six,  and  in  winter  not  later  than  seven  o'clock.  He  worked  in 
his  library  until  his  breakfast-hour  at  half -past  eight,  either  in 
dictating  letters  (his  private  correspondence  was  large),  or  in 
receiving  visitors.  After  breakfast  he  went  directly  to  his  office 
in  the  department.  By  half -past  nine,  and  sometimes  earlier,  he 
would  be  at  his  desk  at  work.  He  rarely,  not  once  a  week, 
except  upon  Cabinet  days,  moved  from  his  seat  till  he  arose  at 
half -past  five  or  six  and  often  later,  to  return  to  his  house. 

The  first  business  of  the  morning  was  to  read  his  personal 
letters,  and  such  official  ones  as  required  his  particular  atten 
tion,  and  dictate  answers,  or  indicate  briefly  the  answers  to  be  re 
turned,  which  were  taken  down  in  short-hand,  and  then  written 
out  at  length  for  his  signature.  He  dictated  rapidly  and  an 
swered  everybody's  letters,  and  did  not  often  change  his  phrase 
ology,  except  in  cases  of  exceptional  importance,  when  he  would 
slashkis  original  drafts  without  mercy.  After  answering  the 
letters,  he  usually  held  brief  audiences  with  the  Assistant  Secre- 


602  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

taries,  which  had  reference  generally  to  the  current  work  of  the 
day.  Then  came  the  public  audiences.  He  would  see  twenty 
to  a  hundred  persons  every  day,  upon  all  sorts  of  subjects  con 
nected  with  the  public  business.  The  time  allotted  to  each  caller 
was  necessarily  short,  and  Mr.  Chase's  manner  was  such  that 
most  persons  felt  the  expediency  of  confining  the  talk  to  the  mat 
ter  in  hand,  and  most  of  them  did  it.  After  these  audiences  were 
at  an  end,  the  regular  departmental  business  of  the  day,  with 
Assistant  Secretaries  and  other  Treasury  officers,  would  begin, 
varied  sometimes  by  interviews  with  financial  gentlemen  and 
such  other  persons  as  had  special  claims  upon  his  attention. 
This  part  of  the  day's  proceedings  usually  occupied  two  or  three 
hours.  In  the  afternoon  the  letters  written  at  his  dictation  in 
the  morning,  and  those  prepared  by  the  clerks  in  his  office,  to 
gether  with  the  Treasury  warrants  and  sometimes  other  papers, 
were  presented  for  examination  and  signature.  He  read  every 
letter  and  paper  with  scrupulous  care,  and  frequently  made 
alterations  until  the  original  was  scarcely  traceable.  He  was 
fond  of  brevity,  and  discarded  all  verbiage.  He  went  over  the 
warrants  with  an  almost  equal  attention.  He  signed  his  name 
every  day  from  five  to  seven  hundred  times ;  and,  if  any  one 
will  take  the  trouble  to  make  his  own  signature  even  five  hun 
dred  times  a  day  at  a  sitting,  for  a  fortnight  or  a  month,  he  will 
discover  how  laborious  a  business  it  is.  The  clerks  in  the  office 
who  signed  the  "  demand-notes,"  and  who  did  no  other  work, 
averaged  about  2,500  signatures  a  day,  and  the  rapidest  writers, 
with  the  shortest  names,  did  not  often  exceed  3,000.  And  after 
the  work  of  the  day  was  done  at  the  office,  and  dinner  was  over, 
and  in  the  evening  he  had  granted  audiences  to  visitors  in  a 
social  way,  till  nine  or  half -past  nine  o'clock,  Mr.  Chase  would 
retire  to  his  library  and  work  two  or  three  additional  hours, 
and  sometimes  longer,  before  he  sought  his  bed. 

IX.  This  was  the  daily  routine  of  his  life,  and  it  was  occa 
sionally  necessary  to  work  on  Sundays,  though  he  always  did 
this  with  great  reluctance,  and  never  except  under  a  strong 
conviction  that  it  was  unavoidable. 

X.  It  was  an  inflexible  rule  with  Mr.  Chase  never  to  trans 
act  business  with  ladies.     I  never  knew  him  to  depart  from  this 
rule.      On  one  occasion,  a  rude  and  persistent  woman  office- 


A  RULE  ABOUT  WOMEN.  G03 

broker,  of  considerable  personal  attractions,  literally  thrust  her 
self  into  his  presence,  and  demanded  an  interview ;  but  his 
refusal  was  so  emphatic  and  his  manner  so  stern  that  she  re 
treated  thoroughly  frightened.  On  another  occasion,  Mrs.  W., 
wife  of  an  old  acquaintance  and  herself  intimate  in  Mr.  Chase's 
family,  and  a  lady  of  great  elegance,  boasted  that  she  would 
make  him  forego  his  rule.  She  went  to  the  office,  and  sent  in 
her  card.  He  sent  back  a  very  courteous  message,  explaining 
his  regulation,  and  invited  her  at  the  same  time  to  make  known 
her  wishes  through  the  messenger.  But  Mrs.  "W".  had  no  wish 
except  to  make  him  break  his  rule  in  her  favor.  Presently  she 
sent  her  card  a  second  time,  and  received  again  the  same  mes 
sage.  She  then  resolved  upon  another  expedient.  She  gave 
the  messenger  at  the  office-door  no  opportunity  to  intercept 
her,  except  by  an  act  of  great  rudeness,  and  deliberately  opened 
it,  and,  stepping  inside,  asked  the  Secretary  if  she  could  have  an 
interview.  His  reply  was  a  stern  and  unmistakable  "  No  ! " 
She  burst  into  tears  and  retreated  ;  Mr.  Chase,  instantly  full 
of  regret,  followed  Mrs.  W.  into  the  hall,  and  seating  himself 
at  her  side  upon  one  of  the  sofas,  expressed  his  sorrow  at  what 
had  happened;  repeated  the  rule  he  had  prescribed  for  him 
self,  and  explained  its  necessity  as  he  thought,  and  again  asked 
her  to  state  her  wishes ;  but  did  not  invite  her  into  his  office. 
However,  a  shrewd  and  intelligent  young  woman  from  New 
Hampshire  once  managed  to  get  into  his  library  before  break 
fast,  and  extorted  from  him  a  promise  of  a  place  before  he  was 
well  aware  of  what  he  had  done.  He  explained,  after  this 
young  person  had  departed,  his  reason  for  his  rule  upon  this 
subject.  He  said  that  no  amount  of  statement  or  explanation 
was  sufficient  to  convince  a  woman  that  to  grant  any  particular 
request  was  either  inexpedient  or  impossible ;  and  he  instanced 
the  case  of  one  poor  wife,  who,  while  he  was  Governor  of  Ohio, 
came  to  his  house  with  her  luggage  and  two  or  three  children, 
and  announced  her  fixed  purpose  to  stay  until  she  had  pro 
cured  the  pardon  of  her  husband,  who  was  a  convict  in  the 
penitentiary. 

XI.  Mr.  Chase's  steady  and  unwearying  application  in  the 
Treasury  Department  was*  only  a  type  of  the  habit  of  his  life. 
He  was  equally  laborious  as  student,  teacher,  lawyer,  Senator, 


604  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Governor  of  Ohio,  and  Chief-Justice.  He  was  no  society  man, 
and  had  a  strong  dislike  for  fashionable  life,  and  seldom  went 
out  even  upon  those  ceremonial  occasions  prescribed  by  the 
etiquette  of  official  life  at  Washington.  He  liked  the  presence 
of  visitors  at  his  own  table,  but  he  cared  very  little  to  sit  at  the 
tables  of  others.  He  took  scarcely  any  physical  exercise  till  after 
an  attack  of  paralysis  made  physical  exercise  a  necessity ;  then  he 
took  a  great  deal.  He  was  fond  of  simple  and  innocent  games ; 
croquet  was  a  special  favorite,  and  even  that  child's  game  called 
"  parcheesi."  He  was  also  fond  of  chess,-and  played  a  very  good 
amateur  game,  and  did  not  like  to  be  beaten.  He  hated  cards, 
and  all  games  of  chance.  I  do  not  think  he  ever  went  to  a  thea 
tre  in  his  life.  He  was  fond  of  books,  and  had  accumulated  a  li 
brary  of  about  two  thousand  volumes,  and  had  among  them  twenty 
or  thirty  dictionaries  and  lexicons,  and  many  atlases ;  but  most  of 
his  books  were  characteristic  of  his  mind :  they  were  chiefly  polit 
ical  and  historical,  and  upon  the  law,  with  a  very  few  of  poetry 
and  none  of  fiction.  He  was  fond  of  reading,  but  the  nature  of 
his  employments  left  him  no  time  to  indulge  in  it  as  a  luxury. 
His  knowledge  of  history  was  perhaps  not  extensive,  but  it  was 
accurate.  He  was  a  good  classical  scholar,  and  read  French  and 
German  with  ease,  and  wrote  both  with  correctness.  He  was 
desultory  in  keeping  up  his  diaries.  The  publication  of  some 
parts  of  them  he  expressly  prohibited,  and  many  of  them  were 
of  an  unmistakable  private  character,  and  obviously  never  in 
tended  for  the  pubh'c  eye.  He  loved  a  neat  and  elegant  hand 
writing,  and  appointed  several  persons  to  office  on  the  mere  tes 
timony  of  their  chirography,  nor  did  he  make  a  mistake  in  doing 
so.  His  own  hand  was  singularly  graceful,  when  he  was  not 
driven  for  time.  He  wrote  with  great  rapidity,  and  never  made 
errors  in  spelling. 

XII.  Mr.  Chase  took  a  deep  interest  in  military  affairs, 
and  studied  them  with  careful  attention.  "While  Governor  of 
Ohio,  he  had  taken  a  good  deal  of  pains  in  respect  of  the  re 
organization  of  the  State  militia,  and  came  to  Washington, 
therefore,  with  some  valuable  experience.  It  became  evident, 
early  in  April,  1861,  that  the  75,000  three  months'  volun 
teers  called  out  originally  by  the  •  President's  proclamation, 
would  accomplish  very  little  toward  the  suppression  of  the  re- 


ARMY  ORDERS.  605 

bellion,  and  it  was  determined  to  call  out  a  force  of  regulars  and 
volunteers  to  take  their  places  as  rapidly  as  tlieir  terms  should 
expire.  At  this  time  the  magnitude  of  the  rebellion  was  very 
imperfectly  appreciated,  and  this  second  call  was  limited  to 
42,000  volunteers  and  28,000  regulars.  There  was  no  actual 
law  for  it,  but  it  was  within  the  spirit  of  existing  laws.  In 
order  to  best  shape  the  matter  for  submission  to  Congress,  the 
President,  with  the  concurrence  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  re 
quested  Mr.  Chase  to  prepare  the  proper  plans  for  the  new 
organization ;  these  plans  to  be  in  the  form  of  military  orders, 
to  be  laid  before  Congress  at  the  extra  session  in  July  for  the 
legislative  sanction.  With  some  diffidence  Mr.  Chase  under 
took  their  preparation.  In  a  few  days  the  orders  were  ready, 
and  now  stand  as  Nos.  15  and  16.  When  Congress  met, 
they  were  made  the  basis  of  its  legislation,  and  were  substan 
tially  incorporated  into  the  acts  authorizing  the  employment 
of  volunteers,  and  an  increase  in  the  number  of  regulars. 
There  were  important  departures,  however,  from  the  plans 
proposed  by  Mr.  Chase,  which  had  some  features  peculiarly 
characteristic  of  his  mind.  I  indicate  two  or  three  of  these. 
The  orders  provided,  for  example,  that  in  the  original  organ 
ization  of  both  volunteers  and  regulars,  one-third  of  the  com 
pany  officers  should  be  appointed  from  the  ranks,  on  the  rec 
ommendation  of  the  proper  colonel,  approved  by  the  general 
commanding  the  brigade.  The  law,  however,  provided  for  no 
original  selections  from  the  ranks.  The  orders,  also,  while  pro 
viding  for  the  appointment  of  field  and  company  officers  of 
volunteers  by  the  Governors  of  the  respective  States  furnish 
ing  the  troops,  left  all  vacancies  to  be  filled  by  the  President, 
and  so  made  him  directly  responsible  for  the  efficiency  of  the 
volunteers,  as  well  as  the  regulars.  The  law,  however,  pro 
vided  for  filling  vacancies  by  the  Governors  of  States ;  a  provi 
sion  which  became  a  most  fruitful  source  of  demoralization. 
The  orders  provided,  moreover,  that  one-half  of  all  vacancies 
occurring  in  both  the  volunteer  and  regular  service,  should  be 
filled  by  promotion  from  the  ranks.  This  provision  was  wholly 
omitted  in  the  legislation  of  Congress,  leaving  the  common 
soldier  no  opportunity  for  promotion,  unless  by  the  chance 
recognition  or  favor  of  the  appointing  power.  The  orders,  it 


606  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

will  thus  be  perceived,  contained  provisions  which  secured 
much  better  opportunities  for  the  private  soldier,  a  more  com 
plete  responsibility  in  the  Government,  and  a  higher  probability 
of  efficiency,  than  the  laws  under  which  almost  the  whole  army 
organization,  as  it  now  exists,  was  created. 

In  addition  to  this  labor,  Mr.  Chase  was  called  upon,  by 
the  President  and  Secretary  of  War,  to  take  a  very  considerable 
part  in  the  measures  thought  necessary  to  prevent  the  success 
of  efforts  to  plunge  Kentucky  and  Missouri  into  rebellion ;  and 
to  him  was  committed,  for  a  time,  the  principal  charge  of  what 
related  to  military  matters  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  and  he 
was  very  active  also  in  promoting  the  military  measures  deemed 
necessary  for  the  safety  of  Missouri.  I  greatly  regret  that  it  is 
not  in  my  power  to  give  details  concerning  these  matters.  They 
would  show  that  Mr.  Chase,  though  an  amateur  in  the  art  of  war, 
exercised  a  sound  judgment.  He  was  a  careful  and  attentive 
student  of  military  movements.  No  member  of  the  Adminis 
tration —  although  such  studies  were  not  strictly  within  the 
province  of  his  department  —  was  more  extensively  or  more 
accurately  informed  than  he  was.  He  had  copies  of  all  the 
military  maps  issued  by  the  War  Department ;  he  studied  them 
daily,  and  knew  them  familiarly.  He  more  than  once  expressed 
a  regret  that  he  had  not  chosen  a  military  career ;  and  that  he 
would  have  made  a  vigorous  and  successful  leader  it  is  hard  to 
doubt.  ^ 

XIII.  When  Mr.  Chase  entered  upon  the  duties  of  the  Treas 
ury  Department,  he  brought  with  him  only  that  limited  finan 
cial  experience  which  had  attended  upon  his  administration  as 
Governor  of  Ohio.  His  reading  upon  financial  subjects  had  not 
been  extensive,  although  of  course  he  had  read  more  or  less ;  but 
his  reflections,  and  his  observations  in  a  practical  way,  had  led 
him  to  entertain  very  definite  and  decided  opinions  upon  some 
of  the  more  important  matters  involved  in  public  financial  sci 
ence.  He  believed  in  "  incidental  protection "  to  home  indus 
tries,  and,  though  he  did  not  doubt  the  general  correctness  of 
the  doctrines  of  free  trade,  he  knew  very  well  that,  as  a  practical 
fact,  there  was  no  present  prospect  of  the  adoption  of  an  unre 
stricted  commercial  intercourse  between  nations,  however  enlight 
ened.  Upon  one  vital  point  he  was  clear.  It  was  this :  that  a 


EARLY  VIEWS  ON  CURRENCY.  607 

sound  and  efficient  currency  is  indispensable  to  the  welfare  of 
every  civilized  community,  and  that  the  best  practical  currency 
would  be  one  of  coin,  admitting  the  use  of  large  notes  for  the 
convenience  of  commerce.  Such  a  currency  he  thought  to  be 
attainable,  however,  only  through  the  legislation  of  Congress, 
and  the  action  of  the  Federal  Government.  "  !Nb  general  objec 
tion  existed,"  he  said,  "  to  a  mixed  currency  of  coin,  and  notes 
exchangeable  for  coin  at  the  will  of  the  holder  without  loss; 
while  all  mere  paper-money  systems,  pregnant  with  fraud  and 
fruitful  of  ruin,  justly  incurred  universal  reprobation."  These 
words  are  from  his  inaugural  address  in  1856. 

"  A  leading  object  in  all  regulations  of  currency,"  he  said,  in 
his  annual  message  for  1858,  "  should  be  to  secure  the  interests 
of  the  masses  of  the  people  by  such  provisions  as  will  insure  to 
labor  just  compensation  in  actual  value.  This  cannot  be  effected 
while  the  laborer  is  paid  in  paper,  subject  to  continual  fluctua 
tions  and  all  the  hazards  of  financial  disorder.  Whatever  can  be 
constitutionally  effected  by  State  legislation,  toward  the  exclu 
sion  of  the  smaller  denominations  of  notes  for  circulation,  and 
the  substitution  of  coin  in  their  place,  should  be  earnestly 
attempted.  .  .  .  Looking  to  the  manifest  intent  of  the  Consti 
tution  to  protect  the  people  from  the  evils  of  a  paper  currency, 
as  well  as  to  the  specific  powers  granted  to  Congress,  I  cannot 
doubt  the  power  of  the  national  legislature  to  prohibit  the  cir 
culation,  as  money,  of  any  substitutes  for  coin.  Nor  can  I  doubt 
that  the  exercise  of  that  power,  by  the  gradual  prohibition  of 
notes  of  the  smaller  denominations,  under  twenty  dollars,  would 
be  wise  and  salutary.  ...  I  see  no  reason,  indeed — especially,  if 
small  notes  be  once  excluded  from  circulation — why  the  business 
of  banking  may  not  be  safely  left  as  open  and  free,  to  all  who 
desire  to  engage  in  it,  as  any  other  kind  of  business ;  care  being 
taken  that  ample  securities  be  given,  in  bonds  of  the  State  or  of 
the  United  States,  and  by  provision  of  an  adequate  specie-fund 
for  the  redemption  of  all  notes  in  coin.  Bank-notes,  circulating 
as  money,  are  debts  due  to  the  community  at  large,  payable  on 
demand ;  and  it  is  the  duty  of  the  State,  representing  the  com 
munity,  to  see  that  those  debts  are  perfectly  secured.  Such  se 
curities  are  indispensable,  and  I  submit  whether  the  experience 
of  the  last  few  years  does  not  suggest  the  expediency  of  requiring 


608  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

similar  securities — or,  at  least,  of  procuring  efficient  guards  of 
some  kind — insuring  punctual  payment  of  deposits  for  safe 
keeping." 

Mr.  Chase  sought  to  incorporate  into  the  national  banking 
system,  so  far  as  he  was  able  to  do  it  in  the  circumstances  of  the 
country,  the  thoroughly-sound  principle  enunciated  in  this  ex 
tract. 

His  want  of  extensive  financial  experience  and  knowledge 
of  "book-finance,"  however,  was  more  than  compensated  by 
the  possession  of  a  sagacious  judgment  and  an  independent 
will.  From  the  beginning  he  consulted  the  leading  capitalists 
and  financial  gentlemen  of  the  country,  and  read  every  letter 
that  came  to  him  which  contained  a  suggestion  upon  financial 
topics.  He  sought  information  from  all  quarters,  thoroughly 
weighed  all  that  was  written  or  said  to  him,  and  was  governed 
by  his  own  judgment  at  the  last.  That  he  made  mistakes  may 
be  admitted  without  detracting  from  the  splendor  of  his  success. 
He  was  none  the  less  a  great  minister,  whose  fame  is  justly  a 
part  df  the  glory  of  his  countrymen.  What  he  accomplished 
was  his  own  work  solely,  for  he  was  compelled  to  conduct  the 
finances  with  little  or  no  help  from  the  President  or  any  of  his 
associates  in  the  Cabinet. 

XIY.  The  greatest  of  Mr.  Chase's  financial  achievements 
was  the  national  banking  system,  and  its  existence  is  to-day  a 
monument  of  his  indomitable  and  persevering  will.  "Wlten  he 
first  proposed  it  to  Congress  and  the  country,  it  had  no  friends 
and  many  and  powerful  enemies.  The  almost  united  banking 
capital  of  the  country  was  actively  hostile ;  old  political  preju 
dices  against  the  United  States  Bank  were  revived  against  this 
system ;  the  Democratic  party  was  solid  in  opposition,  and  the 
Republicans  were  almost  equally  united  against  it.  It  received 
no  consideration  at  all  at  the  hands  of  the  Congress  in  which  it 
was  first  proposed  by  Mr.  Hooper.  But  Mr.  Chase  was  confi 
dent  that  its  intrinsic  merits  must  commend  it  to  the  ultimate 
approval  of  the  people,  and  that  its  adoption  was  indispensable 
to  financial  success,  and  he  urged  it,  with  persevering  earnest 
ness,  upon  Congress  and  bankers,  and  upon  influential  journal 
ists.  A  few  fell  in  with  his  views ;  these  brought  others,  and 
the  opposition  was  gradually  broken  down.  Public  sentiment 


POLITICAL  ACTION.  609 

rallied  in  its  favor,  and  it  was  established  in  a  wonderfully  short 
time,  without  being  made  a  party  measure,  without  any  ener 
getic  action  in  its  support  on  the  part  of  the  national  Administra 
tion,  and  without  any  appliance  of  corruption.  In  view  of  the 
vast  influences  hostile  to  it,  and  its  want  of  party  and  adminis 
trative  support,  its  success  was  an  extraordinary  triumph,  and 
illustrated  the  genius,  the  will,  and  the  tenacity  of  its  great  pro 
jector. 

XY.  Mr.  Chase  left  the  impress  of  his  mind  and  will  upon 
all  that  he  touched.  He  was  a  born  leader,  and  undoubtedly  ex 
ercised  a  greater  influence  upon  the  destinies  of  his  country  than 
any  other  statesman  of  his  generation.  To  join  the  antislavery 
movement  and  to  exercise  its  practical  leadership,  were  nearly 
simultaneous  events.  He  soon  led  it  from  a  position  of  mere  as 
sertion  to  one  of  practical  action ;  and  though  it  was  long  weak 
as  respected  numbers,  it  was  soon  important  and  even  powerful 
as  respected  influence.  Mr.  Chase  inspired  it  to  activity  and  en 
ergy,  and  excited  an  early,  wide-spread  discussion  of  the  slavery 
question,  which  rapidly  modified  public  sentiment,  and  prepared 
vast  numbers  of  the  Northern  people  for  that  sort  of  constitu 
tional  antislavery  action  which  was  advocated  by  the  independ 
ent  Democracy,  and,  until  the  war  began,  was  the  bond  of  union 
among  Eepublicans.  It  is  true  that  the  old  parties  still  clung  to 
old  symbols,  but  the  principle  upon  which  to  base  a  departure  lay 
deep  in  the  bosom  of  both.  "What  was  needed  was  an  adequate 
occasion'  for  its  development.  That  occasion  arose  when  the 
Democratic  party,  in  1854,  repealed  the  Missouri  prohibition.  It 
was  not  a  work  of  extraordinary  difficulty  at  that  time  to  organ 
ize  a  great  party  upon  the  avowed  basis  of  slavery  restriction  and 
exclusion  from  the  national  jurisdiction.  Mr.  Chase  warmly  con 
gratulated  himself  that  the  first  stone  cast  at  the  "  monster  "  of 
repeal  went  from  his  sling :  and  though,  in  the  interval  between 
the  passage  of  the  Nebraska  Bill  by  the  Senate  and  action  upon 
it  by  the  House,  he  hoped  and  believed  it  might  be  defeated,  he 
was  not  over-confident,  but  with  characteristic  energy  applied 
himself  to  the  work  of  marshaling  the  elements  of  opposition  to 
the  great  wrong ;  and  of  organizing  them  for  prompt  and  effi 
cient  action.  In  Ohio,  that  organization  was  effected  with  as 
tonishing  rapidity.  All  efforts  to  divert  public  sentiment  into 
39 


610  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

other  channels  were  ineffective.  The  Whig  party  was  utterly 
extinguished  in  the  course  of  a  few  months,  and  the  Democratic 
party  was  put  into  a  position  of  hopeless  and  permanent  minor 
ity.  And  this  happened  also  in  other  Western  States,  though 
in  none  of  them  so  overwhelmingly  as  in  Ohio.  In  most  of  the 
States  of  the  East  —  even  in  Massachusetts — Whiggery  and 
Know-IsTothingery  clung  to  their  idols  in  the  fall  elections  of 
1854,  and  some  even  in  the  fall  elections  of  1855,  but  both  were 
broken  down  by  the  pressure  from  the  West.  And  they  were 
Ohio  delegates  in  the  national  convention  of  the  Know-Nothings 
who,  in  1856,  at  Philadelphia,  led  the  antislavery  movement 
which  divided  and  finally  destroyed  that  organization.  It  may 
safely  be  said  that  Mr.  Chase  led  the  movement  in  Mr.  Lincoln's 
Cabinet  for  emancipation,  and  he  certainly  urged  it  with  a  steadi 
ness  and  pertinacity  almost  painful  to  the  President.  He  was 
the  early  advocate  of  an  extension  of  the  suffrage  to  the  enfran 
chised  slaves ;  and  lived  to  see  organic  changes  which  the  boldest 
imagination,  when  he  joined  the  antislavery  movement,  would 
have  thought  it  madness  to  predict,  and  in  all  of  them  he  was 
a  principal  and  probably  the  most  powerful  agent. 

XVI.  Mr.  Chase's  political  opinions  were  founded  upon  re 
ligious  beliefs.  He  one  day  said  to  me  that  universal  suffrage 
was  a  natural  right  which  grew  out  of  the  obligation  men  were 
under  to  worship  God.  He  was  a  Democrat,  because  democracy 
embodied,  as  he  thought,  the  perfect  equality  of  men  before  the 
law,  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man 
kind.  He  often  quoted  the  noble  description  of  William  Allen, 
of  Ohio,  his  predecessor  in  the  United  States  Senate :  "  Democ 
racy,"  said  Mr.  Allen,  "  is  a  sentiment  not  to  be  appalled,  cor 
rupted,  or  compromised.  It  knows  no  baseness ;  it  cowers  to 
no  danger;  it  oppresses  no  weakness.  Fearless,  generous,  and 
humane,  it  rebukes  the  arrogant,  cherishes  honor,  and  sympa 
thizes  with  the  humble.  It  asks  nothing  but  what  it  concedes ; 
it  concedes  nothing  but  what  it  demands.  Destructive  only  of 
despotism,  it  is  the  conservator  of  liberty,  labor,  and  property. 
It  is  the  sentiment  of  freedom,  of  equal  rights,  of  equal  obliga 
tions.  It  is  the  law  of  Nature  pervading  the  law  of  the  land. 
The  stupid,  the  selfish,  and  the  base  in  spirit,  may  denounce  it 
as  a  vulgar  thing,  but  in  the  history  of  our  race  the  democratic 


SLAVERY  AND  THE  CONSTITUTION.  611 

principle  has  developed  the  highest  moral  and  intellectual  attri 
butes  of  our  nature.  Yes :  that  is  a  noble  and  magnanimous 
sentiment  which  expands  our  affections,  enlarges  the  circle  of 
our  sympathies,  and  elevates  the  soul  of  man,  until,  claiming 
an  equality  with  the  best,  he  rejects  as  unworthy  of  his  dignity 
any  political  immunities  over  the  humblest  of  his  fellows." 
This  was  the  democracy  of  the  founders  of  the  Democratic  party, 
and  it  was  that  of  Mr.  Chase,  to  which  he  hoped  to  see  the 
Democratic  party  of  his  own  time  honestly  and  practically  con 
form  itself. 

But  he  recognized  at  the  same  time  the  obligation  of  obedi 
ence  to  law.  This  cannot  be  so  well  illustrated  as  by  his  own 
words  in  a  letter  to  Theodore  Parker,  written  in  1856,  while  he 
was  Governor  of  Ohio : 

"  You  have  laid  me  under  additional  obligations,"  he  said  in 
that  letter,  "  by  sending  me  the  c  Great  Battle ! '  It  is  a  fit  char 
acterization  of  the  struggle  in  which  you  have  dealt  so  many 
and  such  manful  blows  on  the  right  side. 

"  But  I  have  somewhat  to  complain  of  in  your  first  speech. 
You  say,  on  the  supposition  that  the  slaves  are  white,  '  Do  you 
believe  Governor  Chase  would  have  said,  "  No  slaves  outside  of 
slave  States,  but  inside  of  slave  States  just  as  much  enslavement 
of  Anglo-Saxon  men  as  you  please  ? " 

"  My  first  objection  to  this,  is  the  apparent  assertion  that  I 
have  said,  '  Inside  of  slave  States  just  as  much  enslavement  as 
you  please ! '  I  never  said  that,  for  I  never  thought  it.  There  is 
no  spot  on  earth  on  which  I  would  sanction  slavery. 

"  My  other  objection  is  the  intimation  that  my  constitutional 
views  on  the  slavery  question  are  determined  by  considerations 
of  the  color  or  origin  of  the  enslaved.  God  forbid  !  If  every 
slave  in  the  South  were  bleached  to-morrow — if  every  drop  of 
African  blood  could  be  by  a  miracle  converted  into  purest  Anglo- 
Saxon — the  constitutional  power  of  the  General  Government 
over  slavery  in  the  slave  States  would  be  no  whit  enlarged.  If 
the  General  Government  has  not  the  power  to  abolish  the  slavery 
of  the  black  man  in  the  slave  States,  it  certainly  would  have  none 
to  abolish  the  slavery  of  the  white  man.  Indeed,  not  a  few 
white  men,  to  all  practical  intents  and  purposes,  and  some  proba 
bly  of  pure  Caucasian  blood,  are  now  slaves  in  the  slave  States. 


612  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

"  I  adopt  your  motto  very  cheerfully  and  heartily,  c  No  sla 
very  anywhere  in  America.  No  slavery  anywhere  on  earth ! ' 
The  latter  is,  yon  say,  the  6  topmost '  idea.  The  first,  then,  is 
not  topmost.  My  sentence,  '  No  slavery  ontside  of  the  slave 
States,'  also  is  not  { topmost.'  But  it  is,  to  an  earnest  man, 
anxious  to  get  to  the  top,  quite  as  important.  It  is  funda 
mental.  The  General  Government  has  power  to  prohibit  slavery 
everywhere  outside  of  slave  States.  A  great  majority  of  the 
people  now  accept  this  idea.  Comparatively  few  adopt  the  sug 
gestion  that  Congress  can  legislate  abolition  within  slave  States. 
That  proposition  most  men  who  have  studied  our  institutions 
regard  as  including  the  doctrine  of  consolidation  and  subversion 
of  State  sovereignties,  and  other  consequences  dangerous  to  the 
rights  of  the  people,  and  tending  to  bring  on  despotism.  I 
say,  then,  take  the  conceded  proposition  and  make  it  practical. 
Make  it  a  living,  active  reality.  Then  you  have  taken  a  great 
step.  Slavery  is  denationalized.  The  faith  and  practice  of  the 
national  Government  are  on  the  side  of  freedom.  Then,  encour 
aged  by  national  example,  by  the  sympathies,  the  cheering 
words,  and  liberal  aid  of  good  men  and  patriots,  let  the  men  of 
the  slave  States  organize  for  the  enfranchisement  of  their  own 
communities.  By-and-by,  and  not  far  off,  you  will  come  to 
the  second  idea — '  No  slavery  in  America.'  Then  let  the  moral 
influence  and  wise  action  of  the  nation,  wholly  enfranchised,  be 
made  active  on  the  side  of  universal  freedom.  .  .  . 

"  I  don't  pretend  to  be  a  very  wise  or  expert  statesman ;  but 
a  roughly-trained,  practical  backwoodsman,  who  wishes  to  do 
something  for  truth,  justice,  and  human  progress,  and  who 
would  prefer  that  what  little  he  does  or  says  should  be  so  spoken 
of  that  nothing  in  his  example,  of  word  or  deed,  shall  ever 
seem  to  contribute  to  the  upholding  of  wrong." 

XVII.  As  a  member  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cabinet,  Mr.  Chase 
opposed  all  interference  with  freedom  of  the  press  and  of  speech. 
He  was  outspoken  against  the  order  under  which  Mr.  Yallan- 
digham  was  arrested,  and  those  other  orders  of  military  com 
manders  which  suppressed  the  Chicago  Times,  and  interfered 
with  the  free  circulation  of  the  New  York  World,  the  New 
York  Journal  of  Commerce,  and  other  newspapers,  in  their 
several  departments.  He  did  not  like  to  see  a  suspension  of  the 


SUCCESS  AS  A  LAWYER.  613 

writ  of  Jiabeas  coi^pus,  and  thought  it  to  be  an  act  to  be  resorted 
to  only  in  a  great  necessity,  and  then  in  a  way  the  least  possibly 
offensive  to  public  sentiment.  In  the  fall  of  1863,  when  the 
President  and  Secretary  of  War  had  determined  to  resist  the 
processes  of  individual  courts  by  military  power,  Mr.  Chase 
disapproved  so  dangerous  a  method  of  procedure,  and  prevailed 
upon  the  President  to  adopt  one  less  provocative  of  excitement 
and  conflict,  by  a  suspension  of  the  writ  uniform  in  its  operation, 
and  only  sufficiently  extensive  to  meet  the  particular  exigency. 
When  the  abuse  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  by  Federal  as  well 
as  State  courts  was  under  discussion  in  the  Cabinet  in  Septem 
ber,  1863,  Mr.  Chase  took  occasion  to  say  that  he  had  always  re 
garded  the  writ  as  a  vital  safeguard  of  personal  liberty,  and  its 
suspension  as  a  measure  of  great  gravity,  to  be  justified  only 
upon  grounds  of  unavoidable  public  necessity. 

XVIII.  Mr.  Chase  was  eminently  successful  as  a  lawyer. 
When  he  was  elected  to  the  Senate  in  1849,  if  he  was  not  at 
the  head  of  the  bar,  he  assuredly  was  second  to  no  member  of 
his  profession  in  the  "West.  He  was  not  gifted  as  an  orator ; 
his  utterance  was  somewhat  thick,  and  his  manner  lacked  in 
grace,  but  he  was  a  skillful  and  successful  advocate  all  the 
same,  for  he  never  went  into  court  without  thoroughly  know 
ing  his  case — at  any  rate  as  thoroughly  as  it  was  possible  to 
know  it — in  all  its  aspects,  legal  and  other.  It  was  his  habit 
to  brief  his  adversary's  case  as  carefully  as  his  own  in  all  im 
portant  causes.  From  an  early  period  in  his  professional  career 
his  practice  was  confined  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State 
and  of  the  United  States.  His  arguments  were  distinguished 
for  luminousness  and  method,  and  some  of  them  even  for  elo 
quence,  as  will  be  perceived  by  reference  to  the  great  case  of 
John  Yan  Zandt.1  The  stately  and  sustained  diction  of  that  cel 
ebrated  argument  drew  warm  praises  even  from  Daniel  Webster. 

Fifteen  years  of  continuous  political  life  had  a  good  deal 
obscured  Mr.  Chase's  fame  as  a  lawyer  when  he  was  appointed 
Chief -Justice  in  1864,  and  his  law-learning  was  somewhat  rusted 
by  long  disuse,  though  he  had  not  ceased  to  read  more  or  less 
upon  law  topics,  while  his  service  in  the  Treasury  was  one  in 
which  reference  to  legal  opinions  was  constantly  recurring  in 

1  See  ante,  page  56. 


614  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

practice  in  a  semi-judicial  way.  No  sooner  was  he  appointed, 
however,  than  he  applied  himself  with  characteristic  diligence 
to  his  new  duties.  He  became  a  second  time  a  student  of  the 
law,  and  did  not  remit  the  severity  of  his  application  until 
paralysis  struck  him  down. 

The  eight  years  of  his  judicial  service  were  exceptionally 
eventful  and  important  in  the  history  of  the  Supreme  Court. 
Many  new  questions — consequent  upon  the  war — came  up  for 
adjudication.  The  court  found  itself  in  conflict  with  Congress 
on  the  one  side,  and  the  Chief-Justice  felt  called  upon  to  main 
tain  the  freedom  and  independence  of  the  judicial  department 
as  against  the  executive  on  the  other.  It  is  not  within  the 
scope  of  this  book  to  go  into  his  judicial  career,  further  than  as 
it  concerned  certain  questions  of  financial  interest ;  but  it  may 
be  observed  that  he  sustained,  in  his  judicial  action,  his  well- 
known  principles  touching  the  rights  of  States  and  the  rights  of 
men. 

XIX.  Mr.  Chase's  mental  operations  were  not  rapid,  but 
they  were  safe  and  sure,  and  he  seldom  had  occasion  to  retrace 
his  steps.  In  his  political  speeches  and  public  papers,  he  aimed 
but  little  at  rhetorical  effects,  but  only  to  persuade  and  con 
vince.  He  was  very  clear  and  logical  in  statement ;  and  was 
without  passion  and  invective  in  the  advocacy  of  his  principles, 
for  he  believed  them  to  be  founded  in  truth,  and  he  knew  that 
the  truth,  though  sometimes  long  obscured,  must  prevail  at  last. 
He  disliked  controversy.  He  was  without  vanity,  though  he 
had  a  strong  sense  of  self-respect  and  of  personal  dignity.  He 
was  ambitious.  Yes,  he  was  ambitious  even  of  the  presidency. 
He  was  conscious  of  the  possession  of  great  powers,  and  he 
knew  he  would  use  them  to  promote  the  prosperity  and  glory 
of  his  countrymen.  They  who  censure  him  for  this,  would  cen 
sure  every  thing  that  inspires  men  to  great  deeds  .and  to  noble 
lives.  .  .  .  He  did  not  take  many  persons  into  his  affections, 
but  no  sacrifice  was  too  great  for  those  who  gained  them.  He 
was  trustful,  however,  of  all  men,  communicating  his  thoughts 
without  reserve  to  any  who  wished  to  know  them.  He  was 
sometimes  abused  by  professed  friends,  not  because  they  be 
trayed  him,  but  because  they  lied ;  for  he  had  no  secrets  and 
there  was  nothing  to  betray.  There  is  no  act  or  utterance  of 


PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS.  615 

his,  either  by  tongue  or  pen,  which  he  might  not  exhibit  to 
the  whole  world  without  a  tinge  of  shame.     There  is  certainly 
nothing  in  his  public  life,  and  no  one  knows  of  any  thing  in  his 
private  life,  which  will  not  bear  the  scrutiny  of  his  worst  enemy. 
He  was  little  given  to  fault-finding  with  others.    When  a  friend 
spoke  with  bitterness  of  a  well-known  public  man  who  had 
been  guilty  of  a  mean  act  of  petit  treason 1  toward  Mr.  Chase, 
he  gently  reproved  him.     Again,  when  I  wrote  an  article  for 
publication  in  a  newspaper  which  had  falsely  assailed  Mr.  Chase, 
and  assailed  the  assailant,  and  showed  him  what  I  had  written, 
he  drew  his  pen  through  all  but  so  much  of  it  as  was  necessary 
to  state  the  facts  simply.     Nevertheless,  he  criticised  some  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  action  and  want  of  action  with  a  great  deal  of  free 
dom,  though  he  never  wavered  in  a  genuine  veneration  for  Mr. 
Lincoln's  character,  nor  did  he  ever  doubt  the  absolute  integrity 
of  Mr.  Lincoln's  motives.     But  he  was  eager  and  impatient  for 
a  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war,  that  human  lives  and  human 
energies  might  be  spared,  and  unnecessary  increase  in  public 
burdens  stopped.    Partisans  may  blame  him  for  this,  but  patri 
ots  will  not.    Mr.  Chase  was  fond  of  young  men,  and  the  young 
men  about  him  bore  for  him  a  sincere  affection.    He  showed  his 
noble  qualities  even  in  respe.  ct  of  servants,  for  he  rarely  changed 
them,  and  they  who  nursed  his  children  lived  with  him  even  at 
the  time  of  his  death.    This  is  a  rare  thing  in  the  Northern  States 
of  our  country ;  it  happened  a  great  deal,  of  course,  under  the 
slave  system.    And  his  servants  were  taught  frugality,  and  accu 
mulated  small  properties  under  his  careful  advice  and  guidance. 
XX.  Mr.  Chase  accepted  office  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
with  a  sincere  reluctance,  not  only  because  its  administration 
would  be  attended  with  great  responsibilities  and  labor,  but  be 
cause  it  involved  a  permanent  residence  at  the  capital  and  an  ex 
pensive  method  of  life,  and  prevented  him '  from  engaging  in 
pursuits  which  would  enable  him  to  add  any  thing  to  his  small 
estate.    He  was  in  debt  $25,000  ;  contracted  chiefly  in  the  pur 
chase  of  a  residence  at  Columbus,  and  in  fitting  it  up  for  occu- 

1  This  admirable  "  Christian  statesman  "  was  a  social  visitor  at  Mr.  Chase's  house, 
and  professed  friendship,  while  at  the  same  moment  he  was  privately  inciting  a  well- 
known  journalist  to  public  denunciation  of  Mr.  Chase.  It  is  a  comfortable  thing  to 
add  that  he  afterward  came  to  grief,  as  was  to  be  expected. 


616  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

pancy  while  Governor.  He  estimated  in  March,  1861,  that 
after  paying  this  indebtedness,  he  would  have  a  clear  property 
of  about  $65,000.  What  he  owned  paid  a  yearly  income  of 
from  $3,500  to  $4,500,  but  out  of  this  were  to  be  paid  taxes  and 
cost  of  management — the  bulk  of  it  being  in  Ohio,  and  a  small 
part  in  New  York.  But  the  depreciation  of  all  kinds  of  prop 
erty  growing  out  of  the  near  prospect  of  a  civil  war,  made  it  im 
possible  for  him  to  pay  his  debts  without  a  sacrifice  which  he 
felt  he  could  not  well  afford  to  make.  He  expected,  during  the 
six  years  of  his  second  senatorial  term,  by  the  exercise  of  econ 
omy,  some  practice  of  the  law,  and  some  sales,  to  pay  his  debts 
without  serious  loss.  But  this  expectation  was  of  course  de 
feated  by  his  appointment  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Under 
these  circumstances  he  thought  himself  warranted  in  procuring 
a  loan  from  New  York  friends — who  would  neither  misunder 
stand  nor  misconstrue  his  application.  These  friends  were  Hiram 
Barney  and  Charles  H.  Marshall.  Mr.  Barney  loaned  him  $5,000, 
and  Mr.  Marshall  $20,000.  His  wish  was  to  relieve  his  mind 
from  anxiety  and  embarrassment,  and  his  property  from  incum- 
brance,  until  he  could  make  such  disposition  of  portions  of  it  as 
would  enable  him  to  pay  his  debts  without  the  large  sacrifice  he 
would  be  compelled  to  make  if  he  did  not  obtain  a  loan.  But 
even  if  forced  to  sacrifices,  he  thought  he  might  pay  all,  and 
still  be  worj;h  $50,000.  Mr.  Marshall  and  Mr.  Barney  were 
very  willing  to  advance  the  sum  he  required,  and  did  advance 
it,  and  took  his  notes  ;  which,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  were  faith 
fully  paid  as  they  matured,  with  interest. 

Mr.  Chase  went  out  of  the  Treasury  Department  poorer 
than  when  he  entered  upon  its  administration ;  and  though  he 
might  have  made  millions,  had  he  so  chosen,  no  doubtful  penny 
ever  came  into  his  possession.  His  estate,  when  he  died,  was 
not  worth  more  than  $100,000,  perhaps  even  less  ;  and  that  he 
was  worth  so  much,  at  the  end  of  a  life  of  never-flagging  labor, 
of  patient  economy,  and  of  perfectly  simple  habits,  was  chiefly 
due  to  accumulations  from  his  salary  as  Chief-Justice  during 
nine  years  of  even  greater  economy  and  more  simplicity  of  life 
than  he  had  formerly  practised. 

Just  before  the  war,  Mr.  Chase  had  $5,000  of  unemployed 
money,  which  he  intrusted  for  investment  to  his  old  friend 


HIS  PRIVATE  FORTUNE.  617 

Joshua  Hanna,  of  Pittsburg.  Mr.  Ilanna  invested  it  in  stock  of 
the  Cleveland  &  Pittsburg  Railroad  Company,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  invested  a  like  sum  of  his  own  in  the  same  stock.  After 
the  breaking  out  of  the  war,  Cleveland  &  Pittsburg  stock  ad 
vanced  rapidly  in  value,  and  when  it  had  become  worth  100  per 
cent,  more  than  had  been  paid  for  it,  Mr.  Hanna  sold  out,  and 
advised  Mr.  Chase  to  sell  also.  Mr.  Chase  acted  upon  Mr. 
Hanna's  advice,  and  made  $5,000  by  the  transaction.  He  told 
me  that  if  he  had  retained  the  stock  twelve  or  fifteen  months 
longer,  he  might  have  realized  $30,000  upon  his  small  invest 
ment.  However,  he  felt  no  regrets  that  he  had  not  done  so. 

In  1867,  a  story  was  put  in  circulation  in  the  papers  to  the 
effect  that  Chief -Justice  Chase  had  accumulated  a  property  of 
$700,000.  Of  course  the  imputation  was  that  he  had  made  so 
large  a  fortune  by  a  corrupt  use  of  his  office  while  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury.  He  was  thoroughly  indignant  at  this,  and  on  the 
17th  of  August,  1867,  wrote  me  as  follows : 

"  A  letter  from  Colonel  Yan  Buren  informs  me  of  your  note 
to  the  World  in  vindication  of  me  against  this  libel.  You  did 
not  let  me  know  of  this  good  deed  of  yours,  but  I  thank  you 
for  it  all  the  same. 

"  Still,  I  am  not  willing  to  acknowledge  any  jurisdiction  of 
anybody  over  my  private  affairs.  What  does  it  concern  any  one 
whether  I  am  worth  seven  hundred  dollars  or  seven  millions  if  I 
have  wronged  nobody  and  misused  no  trust  ?  I  never  made  a 
cent  by  any  use  of  public  funds  or  by  any  knowledge  acquired 
in  a  public  capacity.  After  Congress  confided  in  me  great 
powers  which  would  enable  me,  if  so  inclined,  largely  to  affect 
values  of  all  kinds,  I  wholly  abstained  from  speculations  of  every 
sort — even  from  the  most  lawful  and  innocent  transactions. 

"  The  general  result  of  my  business  both  professional  and 
from  investments  more  or  less  permanent,  has  been  a  gradual 
improvement  in  my  condition,  especially  of  late  years  as  to  in 
come,  for  never  having  been  able  to  live  when  Senator,  Governor, 
and  Secretary,  on  my  salary,  and  practise  a  decent  hospitality, 
I  have  always  sought  to  convert  unproductive  property  into  pro 
ductive,  and  less  productive  into  more  productive.  The  im 
provement  in  actual  value  is  so  slight,  that  I  would  willingly  ex 
change  all  I  have  to-day  for  what  I  had  in  1842.  And  my  pri- 


LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

vate  income  at  this'  time,  though  larger  than  when  I  became  Gov 
ernor  of  Ohio,  in  nominal  amount,  is  less  if  measured  by  its  pur 
chasing  power.  I  will  very  willingly  take  $100,000  in  five-twen 
ties  for  the  whole  of  my  property,  if  any  one  will  take  it  and 
pay  my  debts.1 

"  Let  my  calumniators  be  challenged  to  the  proof  of  a  cent 
gained  by  any  other  than  honest  means,  and  then  let  their  work 
be  exhibited ! " 

XXI.  JSTo  doubt  Mr.  Chase  had  faults ;  but  they  neither  les 
sened  his  personal  dignity  nor  alienated  the  affections  of  his 
friends.  They  venerated  him  most  who  knew  him  best.  For 
they  knew  what  manner  of  man  he  was :  that  he  hated  all  things 
mean,  or  false,  or  unchaste  ;  that  he  was  blameless,  just,  truth 
ful,  abstaining  from  every  evil  deed  ;  generous,  fearless  for 
right,  and  humane ;  honoring  God,  and  loving  his  fellow-men. 

1  Mr.  Chase's  whole  property,  at  that  time,  was  not  worth  more  than  about 
$80,000.  The  largest  income  he  had  in  any  one  year,  including  his  salary  as  Chief- 
Justice  (until  after  Congress  increased  it  in  1872  to  $10,500),  was  less  than  §13,000 
measured  in  paper  money. 


THE  LAST  SCENE  OF  ALL. 

ME.  CHASE  was  six  feet  two  inches  high,  with  a  frame 
and  figure  proportioned  to  his  height.  He  had  a  singu 
larly  impressive  presence,  quite  indescribable  by  words.  It  was 
the  natural  unconscious  expression  of  the  will  which  dwelt 
within  him.  He  had  an  unusually  large  head  ;  blue-gray  eyes, 
under  massive  brows ;  wide  nostrils  and  heavy  lips,  but  of  that 
peculiar  shape  which  shows  the  presence  of  great  firmness. 
He  was  remarkably  near-sighted,  and  was  sometimes  unable  to 
distinguish  intimate  acquaintances,  even  across  a  room.  He  had 
a  rapid  walk,  and,  in  going  from  one  place  to  another,  rarely 
stopped  on  the  way ;  and  was  one  of  those  few  men  who,  even 
in  crowds,  attract  general  observation.  When  he  used  to  pass 
through  the  halls  of  the  Treasury,  men  felt  his  presence,  though 
it  was  unannounced,  and  an  involuntary  hush  always  followed 
upon  his  appearance. 

Incessant  labors  taxed  his  physical  resources  beyond  their 
power  to  respond.  As  early  as  December,  1868,  in  a  short  let 
ter  to  Mr.  "Whitelaw  Keid,  he  said,  "  I  am  worked  beyond  what 
I  thought  possible,  and  I  endure,  and  am  well.  How  long  ? " 
The  warnings  of  friends  were  vain;  but,  in  1869,  he  began  to 
feel  some  alarm.  He  rapidly  lost  flesh,  and,  in  the  spring  of 
18TO,  he  felt  he  could  no  longer  disregard  repeated  indications 
of  danger. 

In  the  summer  of  that  year  he  went  West,  and  spent  some 
time  in  Minnesota,  with  the  hope  that  mental  rest  and  physical 
exercise  would  restore  what  had  been  lost.  He  had  spent  his  life 
in-doors ;  he  was  now  imprudent  in  out-door  exposure.  How 
ever,  he  enjoyed  the  excitements  of  these  new  experiences,  and 
thought  he  was  receiving  benefit  from  them,  but  they  hastened 
the  disaster  he  was  seeking  to  escape. 


620  LEFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

In  August  lie  returned  to  the  East,  accompanied  by  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Hoyt  (who  had  been  his  companions  in  the  "West),  and, 
upon  arriving  at  Niagara  Falls,  spent  a  day  or  two  at  that  place. 
They  left  Niagara,  in  the  two  o'clock  afternoon  train,  on  the  16th 
of  August.  About  an  hour  afterward,  Mr.  Chase  was  observed 
suddenly  to  sway  and  fall  in  his  seat,  and  to  lose  command  of 
his  speech.  It  was  instantly  perceived  that  he  had  been  attacked 
by  paralysis.  The  train  was  stopped,  at  Rochester,  long  enough 
for  some  brief  medical  consultation,  but  it  was  thought  best — 
being  in  a  Pullman  car — to  continue  on  to  New  York.  On  ar 
rival  in  that  city,  August  17th,  a  medical  examination  developed 
that  the  attack  involved  the  whole  of  the  right  side,  from  crown 
to  toe ;  but  that,  although  serious,  it  was  not  necessarily  fatal. 
After  remaining  in  New  York  about  a  week,  he  went  to  Narra- 
gansett,  the  country  residence  of  Governor  Sprague,  where  he 
remained  until  near  the  end  of  the  following  January.  His  im 
provement  at  Narragansett  was  surprisingly  rapid :  he  was  soon 
able  to  take  daily  out-door  exercise,  sometimes  walking  four  to 
six  miles  in  a  day.  He  bent  his  great  will  to  the  work  of  recov 
ery,  though  he  was  an  entirely  docile  patient,  and  followed  Dr. 
Perry's  directions  with  a  scrupulous  exactness.  Nothing  could 
be  more  noticeable,  however,  as  he  began  to  recover  his  strength, 
than  his  eager  impatience  to  get  back  again  to  work.  Still,  he 
very  well  knew  the  nature  and  danger  of  his  sickness,  and,  so 
soon  as  he  was  able  to  do  any  kind  of  labor,  he  proceeded  to  set 
"  his  earthly  house  in  order." 

The  change  wrought  in  his  personal  appearance,  by  the  fear 
ful  malady  under  which  he  suffered,  was  rapid  and  extensive. 
His  hair  grew  white,  and  his  figure  became  greatly  attenuated ; 
but,  even  in  ruin,  he  retained  his  old  impressiveness  of  presence. 
He  was  patient  under  suffering,  and,  though  the  natural  impe- 
riousness  of  his  temper  would  sometimes  flame  out  for  a  mo 
ment,  there  was  something  inexpressibly  pathetic  in  his  resigna 
tion,  and  the  constantly  gentle,  uncomplaining  way  in  which  he 
spoke  of  his  sickness.1  There  is  no  sight  more  ennobling  than 

1  "  It  is  one  of  the  least  pleasant  thoughts  connected  with  the  close  of  Mr.  Chase's 
life  that  it  should  have  been  sometimes  clouded  by  malice  or  thoughtlessness.  There 
sometimes  came  to  him  through  stray  newspaper  paragraphs,  or  chance  gossip,  some 
evidence  of  the  caprice  of  that  cheap  republican  gratitude  which  endures  only  so 


SEARCH  AFTER  HEALTH.  621 

that  of  a  strong  man  suddenly  stricken  down  by  calamity,  bear 
ing  the  stroke  with  patience. 

At  the  close  of  January,  1871,  he  went  to  New  York,  and 
remained  there,  under  treatment,  until  March,  when  he  returned 
to  Washington,  after  an  absence  of  more  than  eight  months. 

In  June  he  went  to  St.  Louis  Magnetic  Springs,  Michigan. 
He  spent  two  or  three  weeks  there.  Thence  he  went  to  "Wau- 

long  as  the  public's  faithful  servant  is  of  use,  and  which,  when  there  is  a  falter  in 
the  hand  that  was  once  so  strong  and  ready,  demands  his  dismissal.  But  it  is  to 
the  credit  of  the  American  heart  that  most  of  us  remembered  the  services  of  Salmon 
P.  Chase,  and  that,  as  a  people,  we  dwelt  on  the  memory  of  this  arduous  and  un 
selfish  life  while,  perhaps,  here  was  a  newspaper  gossiping  about  the  '  succession,' 
or  a  lawyer  grumbling  because  a  case  was  delayed.  These  things,  when  they  pierced 
the  barriers  solicitous  relatives  and  friends  raised  around  him,  could  be  seen  to 
affect  him  deeply,  though  he  never  confessed  it.  But  he  bore  no  malice  for  them. 
It  was  with  no  bitterness,  then,  but  with  a  shrewd  and  kindly  smile,  that  he  some 
times  said,  when  his  health  was  inquired  about,  '  I'm  not  very  well,  but  I'm  a  great 
deal  better  than  some  people  wish  I  was.' 

"  His  will  was  his  great  power.  This  faculty  in  him,  probably  more  than  any 
other,  contributed  to  his  success.  It  was  dominating  and  indomitable ;  it  yielded 
to  no  man  and  to  no  force ;  its  persistency  was  measured  only  by  the  length  of  the 
task  to  be  accomplished,  and  its  firmness  increased  with  the  weight  of  interests  that 
depended  upon  it,  and  while  it  no  doubt  shortened  his  life,  it  again  prolonged  it. 
The  tension  of  the  war  was  wonderfully  sustained,  the  strong  will  ruled  triumphant 
over  the  strong  body;  but  it  was  a  strain  which  could  not  last  forever.  Then  fol 
lowed  the  intense  application  to  books  and  work  which  succeeded  his  accession  to 
the  bench,  and  the  comoined  weight  soon  began  to  tell.  All  through  these  exciting 
and  arduous  periods  he  held  himself  firmly  to  his  post.  Then  came  the  great  shock 
that  prostrated  him,  and  first  set  the  term  beyond  which  he  could  hardly  endure. 
At  this,  the  will  turned  to  repair  its  own  ravages. 

"  All  its  old  force  was  now  bent  in  the  opposite  direction  of  recovering  his  health. 
His  food,  his  hours  of  rising,  exercise,  retiring,  his  continuance  at  work  were  regu 
lated  with  precision  and  the  rules  inflexibly  kept.  By  this  careful  ministering,  he 
slowly  brought  himself  up  to  comparative  strength,  and  finally  fairly  lifted  himself 
upon  the  bench.  It  is  a  question  whether  his  wisest  course  would  not  have  been  to 
pass  the  rest  of  his  days  in  quiet ;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt,  from  a  number  of 
his  expressions,  that  had  Congress  passed  a  law  permitting  the  retirement  of  judges 
at  sixty-five  upon  their  salaries,  he  would  have  seriously  considered  the  wisdom  of 
such  a  step.  He  certainly  at  one  time  felt  an  interest  in  legislation  looking  to  that 
end.  But  while  he  was  on  the  active  roll,  he  was  too  proud  to  seem  neglectful  of 
his  work,  and  too  conscientious  to  receive  even  the  disgraceful  stipend  the  republic 
doles  out  to  her  servants,  without  rendering  what  equivalent  he  could.  That  was 
rendered  scrupulously  to  the  very  last;  and,  considering  the  faithful  industry  of  his 
whole  career  and  the  height  and  nobility  of  that  memorable  life  and  figure,  there 
was,  after  all,  something  fitting  in  the  sudden  crash  with  which  he  went  down." — 
DEMAREST  LLOYD,  "  Home-Life  of  Salmon  Portland  Chase." 


622  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

kesha,  "Wisconsin,  to  drink  the  waters  of  the  Bethesda  Springs. 
He  derived  some  benefit  from  his  stay  at  Waukesha,.  which  lasted 
somewhat  more  than  two  months. 

He  began  his  return  eastward  in  September,  stopping  several 
days  at  Chicago.  He  spent  two  days  also  at  the  Roman  Catholic 
University  of  Notre  Dame,  at  South  Bend,  Indiana,  where  he 
made  a  short  address  to  the  students ;  and  a  couple  of  days  at 
Cleveland.  From  that  city  he  went  to  the  home  of  his  old 
friend  and  co-laborer  in  the  antislavery  cause,  Gerrit  Smith,  at 
Peterboro',  New  York,  and  spent  nearly  a  fortnight  in  the  house 
of  that  noble-hearted  philanthropist. 

He  arrived  again  in  Washington  in  October,  so  far  recovered 
as  to  feel  warranted  in  resuming  his  official  labors,  which  he  did, 
and  occupied  his  seat  in  the  Supreme  Court  during  the  whole  of 
the  term  of  1871  and  1872,  and  also  that  of  1872  and  1873.  He 
performed  his  full  share  of  the  regular  business,  and  read  a  num 
ber  of  opinions,  all  of  them  showing  that  his  mental  faculties 
were  as  clear  and  vigorous  as  at  any  time  in  his  life.  He  walked 
from  his  country-place,  Edgewood — about  two  and  a  half  miles 
from  Washington — into  the  city  and  back  again,  almost  daily,  in 
all  kinds  of  weather,  and  exhibited  surprising  physical  vigor  and 
endurance. 

But  toward  the  close  of  the  term,  in  March  and  April,  1873, 
his  strength  manifestly  diminished.  "  During  the  last  few  days 
he  sat  in  court,"  says  Mr.  Lloyd,  u  a  sudden  weakness  surprised 
him.  His  walk  was  not  so  firm ;  his  breath  hardly  lasted  the 
ascent  of  Capitol  Hill,  which  his  feet  had  trodden  for  a  quar 
ter  of  a  century.  His  voice  was  weaker;  his  manner,  always 
considerate,  but  sometimes  abrupt  through  nervousness  or  ill 
ness,  became  gentler  and  kinder  every  day.  His  very  silence 
was  benignant.  On  the  last  day  the  court  was  in  session,  he 
relinquished  his  place  to  his  venerable  friend  and  associate,  Jus 
tice  ClifEortl,  and  remained  seated  at  his  side,  for  the  first  and 
last  time  of  his  life  resting  his  head  all  day  upon  his  hand. 
What  thoughts  oppressed  him,  or  what  shadow  of  the  disaster  so 
fast  approaching  drew  its  pall  over  his  spirit,  no  man  may  know. 
In  a  little  more  than  a  week  from  that  day  his  body  lay  in  that 
very  chamber  robed  in  a  more  awful  dignity  than  it  had  ever 
worn  in  life." 


HIS  LAST  UTTERANCES.  623 

A  few  days  after  tliis,  on  Saturday  the  3d  of  May,  1873,  Mr. 
Chase  left  Washington  for  New  York,  with  a  view  to  visit  Mrs. 
Hoyt  in  that  city,  and  Mrs.  Sprague  at  her  home  in  Rhode 
Island,  and  some  relatives  in  New  England,  and  to  proceed 
thence  to  Colorado,  to  spend  a  part  of  the  summer  in  that  Ter 
ritory.  He  reached  New  York  that  same  evening,  and  went 
directly  to  the  house  of  his  son-in-law,  Mr.  William  S.  Hoyt, 
on  West  Thirty-third  Street.  He  showed  no  unusual  signs  of 
fatigue  or  weakness.  On  Sunday  he  listened  to  a  sermon  by 
Rev.  John  Hall,  a  Presbyterian  clergyman,  in  the  church  at 
the  corner  of  Fifth  Avenue  and  Nineteenth  Street.  On  Mon 
day  he  was  quite  well ;  and  walked  out  and  made  some  brief 
visits,  and  some  friends  spent  Monday  evening  with  him.  .The 
talk  was  chiefly  upon  political  topics,  especially  with  reference 
to  Southern  affairs.  He  retired  to  his  chamber  at  about  half- 
past  nine  o'clock,  apparently  well  and  certainly  quite  cheer 
ful.  Before  g0ing  to  bed  he  wrote  two  characteristic  letters. 
In  one,  addressed  to  Colonel  Richard  C.  Parsons,  at  Cleve 
land,  he  said  :  "  Since  the  adjournment,  which  came  none 
too  soon,  I  have  made  my  way  to  New  York,  and  am  passing 
two  or  three  days  with  Mrs.  Hoyt.  It  seems  odd  to  be  so  en 
tirely  out  of  the  world  in  the  midst  of  this  great  Babylon ;  but 
I  am  too  much  of  an  invalid  to  be  more  than  a  cipher.  Some 
times  I  feel  as  if  I  were  dead,  though  alive.  I  am  on  my  way  to 
Boston,  where  I  am  to  try  a  treatment,  from  which  great  re 
sults  are  promised ;  but  I  expect  little.  The  lapse  of  sixty-five 
years  is  hard  to  cure."  In  the  second,  addressed  to  his  niece, 
Mrs.  Alice  Skinner  Stebbins,  of  Boston,  he  said :  "  My  dear  Alice 
— I  came  here  on  Saturday,  and  will  come  on  to  Boston  Wednes 
day  or  Thursday  next,  if  you  write  me  that  you  can  receive  me 
without  the  slightest  inconvenience.  Mind ;  I  insist  that  you  do 
not  disturb  yourselves  in  the  least.  If  you  have  a  spare  room,  I 
will  gladly  occupy  it — nothing  more.  All  I  want  from  you  is 
love.  I  crave  affection  and  its  manifestations,  but  I  do  not  want 
to  have  my  ease  consulted,  while  those  who  consult  it  change 
any  of  their  arrangements  for  that  purpose.  Do  I  make  myself 
understood  ?  Will  you  love  me,  and  take  no  trouble  about  me  ? 
I  shall  have  William  with  me :  my  young  man,  who  was  with 
me  last  summer.  My  love  to  Mr.  Stebbins  and  to  our  cousins. 


624  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Most  affectionately  your  uncle,  S.  P.  Chase."  Then,  after  read 
ing  a  chapter  in  the  Bible,  as  was  his  custom,  and  a  few  pages 
in  a  book  of  sermons,  and  night  prayers,  he  lay  down  in  the  bed 
from  which  he  never  came  forth  a  living  man. 

In  the  morning  his  attendant,  "William  Joice,  on  entering 
the  chamber,  found  Mr.  Chase  in  an  apparently  calm  and  easy 
slumber.  William  opened  one  of  the  windows,  and  then  turned 
again  toward  the  sleeping  Chief-Justice.  He  thought  he  saw 
Mr.  Chase  make  an  effort  to  speak.  He  went  to  the  bedside, 
and,  greatly  alarmed  at  Mr.  Chase's  appearance,  called  for  help. 
Medical  assistance  was  immediately  summoned;  and  upon  ex 
amination  it  was  found  that  Mr.  Chase  had  sustained  a  second 
shock  of  paralysis,  which,  from  its  great  severity,  must  soon 
prove  fatal. 

He  lingered,  unconscious,  until  about  ten  o'clock  on  the 
morning  of  the  next  day,  May  7th,  when  he  died  without  a 
struggle.  His  daughters  and  their  husbands,  Governor  Sprague 
and  Mr.  Hoyt,  were  present,  together  with  the  medical  attend- 
,  ants,  Doctors  Perry  and  Metcalf,  Mr.  Hiram  Barney,  Mr.  Edwin 
Hoyt  and  the  Chief -Justice's  long-time  faithful  attendant,  Wil 
liam  Joice. 

Although  the  Chief- Justice's  death  was  not  wholly  unexpect 
ed,  it  was,  after  all,  a  great  shock  to  the  public,  and  occasioned 
a  profound  feeling  throughout  the  country.  Eesolutions  by 
public  bodies,  by  courts  and  assembled  members  of  the  bar,  and 
by  private  citizens,  in  all  the  cities  and  principal  towns,  showed 
that  the  nation  felt  a  genuine  sense  of  the  greatness  of  its  loss. 

The  body  of  the  Chief-Justice  lay  in  state  in  the  Episcopal 
Church  of  St.  George,  in  New  York,  from  Friday  morning,  May 
9th,  until  the  evening  of  the  next  day.  Several  thousand  citi 
zens  visited  the  church  to  look  upon  him  for  the  last  time ; 
and  most  of  them  went  because  they  honored  him. 

On  Saturday  afternoon  funeral  services  were  held  in  the 
same  church.  A  vast  congregation  assembled;  among  them 
were  the  Vice-president  of  the  United  States,  several  of  Mr. 
Chase's  associates  in  the  Supreme  Court,  members  of  the  Presi 
dent's  Cabinet,  Senators  of  the  United  States,  foreign  minis 
ters,  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  officers  of  the 
army  and  navy,  and  distinguished  citizens  from  all  parts  of  the 


BURIAL.  625 

country.  The  pall-bearers  were  Gideon  Welles,  a  surviving  as 
sociate  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cabinet,  Gerrit  Smith,  Hamilton  Fish, 
General  Sherman,  General  McDowell,  William  M.  Evarts, 
Charles  O' Conor,  Whitelaw  Eeid,  William  F.  Havemeyer,  Hi 
ram  Barney,  and  John  J.  Cisco.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Hall,  to  whose 
eloquent  words  only  five  days  before  the  Chief-Justice  had  at 
tentively  listened,  now  delivered  over  his  mortal  part,  a  funeral 
discourse  of  great  solemnity  and  impressiveness.  His  text  was, 
"  The  grass  withereth,  the  flower  fadeth,  but  the  word  of  our 
God  shall  stand  forever." 

That  night  the  body  was  taken  to  Washington,  where  it  ar 
rived  on  Sunday  morning  the  llth  of  May.  It  was  placed  with 
in  the  bar  of  the  Supreme-Court  room,  upon  the  same  catafalque 
upon  which,  eight  years  before,  the  body  of  President  Lincoln 
had  laid  in  state. 

On  Monday  the  closing  funeral  services  were  held  in  the  Sen 
ate-chamber.  The  President  and  his  Cabinet  were  in  attend 
ance,  as  were  also  a  great  number  of  other  distinguished  persons. 
The  chaplain  of  the  Senate,  the  Rev.  Dr.  O.  H.  Tiffany,  deliv 
ered  an  oration  over  the  body,  beginning  with  the  words,  "  The 
life  of  a  great  man  is  a  great  lesson  ;  the  death  of  a  great  man  is 
a  great  loss  ;  the  dying  of  a  great  man  is  a  mysterious  lesson  of 
woe." 

From  the  Senate-chamber  the  body  was  borne  to  its  tempo 
rary  resting-place  in  the  vault  of  the  chapel  in  Oak-Hill  Cemetery 
at  Georgetown.  The  sidewalks  along  Pennsylvania  Avenue  and 
other  streets  were  filled  with  people,  and  all  the  departments  of 
government  were  closed  and  draped  in  mourning,  and  the  flags 
on  the  public  buildings  and  on  many  private  ones  were  at  half- 
mast.  A  hundred  carriages  followed  the  hearse.  At  the  mor 
tuary  chapel  was  read  the  beautiful  and  impressive  burial  service 
of  the  Episcopal  Church,  ending  with  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  a 
benediction,  and  then,  near  sunset,  the  casket  was  lowered  into 
the  vault ;  and  thus,  from  human  sight  forever,  was  hidden  all 
that  was  mortal  of  SALMON  POBTLAND  CHASE. 


40 


626  LIFE   OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 


NOTES  TO  CHAPTER  LIT. 

General  Garfield  to  Mr,  ScJiuclcers. 

44  WASHINGTON,  April  20,  1874. 

"  IN  the  month  of  September,  1862, 1  was  ordered  to  Washington  by  the 
Secretary  of  War,  and  remained  in  that  city  on  military  duty  until  the  fol 
lowing  January.  During  several  weeks  of  September,  October,  and  No 
vember,  I  was  the  guest  of  Mr.  Chase,  and  was  permitted  to  share  his 
morning  and  evening  studies  and  discussions  on  financial  questions.  He 
was  at  that  time  laying  the  foundation  of  the  national  banking  system, 
and  adjusting  it  to  the  financial  machinery  of  the  Government. 

"  It  was  a  great  privilege  to  be  permitted  to  share  his  studies,  to  know 
the  grounds  on  which  his  policy  was  based,  and  to  watch  its  development 
as  it  grew  into  shape.  He  did  not  enter  on  the  study  in  the  spirit  of  dog 
matism,  but  was  willing  to  learn,  from  all  classes  of  men,  whatever  would 
aid  him  in  the  solution  of  the  great  problem.  It  was  his  habit  to  invite  to 
his  house  men  of  theoretical  and  practical  knowledge,  and  to  draw  upon 
their  studies  and  experience.  I  have  a  vivid  recollection  of  many  of  those 
conversations,  and  to  them  I  am  able  to  trace  many  of  the  arguments  by 
which  Mr.  Chase  enforced  his  views  in  his  annual  reports  and  in  his  letters 
to  Congress. 

"  Nothing  impressed  me  more  than  the  great  reluctance  with  which  he 
consented  to  a  departure  from  the  standard  of  value  recognized  by  the  Con 
stitution.  The  pressing  necessities  of  the  war  alone  induced  him  to  rec 
ommend  the  enlargement  of  the  currency  which  was  authorized  about  that 
time.  I  recollect  his  saying  that,  specie  payments  being  suspended,  the 
next  best  thing  to  specie  was  a  bond  whose  interest  was  payable  in  gold 
and  the  principal  finally  redeemable  in  gold.  About  that  time  a  device 
was  adopted  to  prevent  the  counterfeiting  of  fractional  currency,  by  the 
process  of  bronzing  the  paper  on  which  the  engraved  impression  was  after 
ward 'printed.  This  bronze  or  gilt  impression  was  in  circular  form,  and 
on  one  occasion-  Mr.  Chase,  in  answer  to  a  gentleman  who  asked  why  this 
was  done,  said  that,  as  he  was  in  favor  of  specie  payments,  he  was  deter 
mined  that  his  paper  money  should  have  at  least  a  metallic  ring. 

"  During  the  period  to  which  I  have  referred,  the  principle  of  our  sev 
eral  State  bank  systems  formed  an  interesting  topic  of  discussion ;  and  each 
evening  brought  "into  the  Secretary's  library  a  group  of  brilliant  men  whose 
conversations  and  discussions  were  directed  by  him  into  the  line  of  his 
studies.  It  was  peculiarly  interesting  to  me  to  see  the  plan  grow  under 
his  hands,  and  to  trace  the  additions  and  modifications  that  were  made 
from  time  to  time  by  the  suggestions  of  the  friends  who  gathered  about 
him. 

"  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that,  during  that  period,  I  heard  no  expression 
of  a  desire  or  even  a  purpose  to  tolerate  a  continued  suspension  of  specie 
payments.  Every  effort  was  made  so  to  guard  the  paper  issues  that  they 
should  be  speedily  redeemed  and  the  old  standard  restored. 

"  We  cannot  too  frequently  recur  to  that  formative  period,  and  to  the 
necessities  which  compelled  and  the  purposes  which  guided  the  Govern 
ment  in  the  policy  then  established.  The  national  banking  system  was 
intended  by  Mr.  Chase  as  a  permanent  reform  of  our  currency ;  but  it  was 
all  the  while  understood  that  the  Government  would,  at  the  earliest  possi 
ble  moment,  withdraw  from  the  banking  business,  by  ceasing  to  be  a  direct 
issuer  of  currency.  The  greenbacks  were  the  result  of  the  extrernest 
necessity.  The  Secretary  took  occasion  of  this  necessity,  to  reform  the  cur- 


CHARACTERISTICS.  627 

rency,  and  establish  a  permanent  system  of  banking,  based  on  the  business 
of  the  country,  which  he  believed  would  be  a  great  national  blessing. 

"  Besides  his  attention  to  public  questions,  he  cultivated  and  enjoyed, 
with  a  keen  relish,  the  companionship  of  books,  and  was  familiar  with  the 
great  masters  of  literature. 

"  I  remember  an  incident  which  illustrated  his  intimate  knowledge  of 
Tennyson.  In  1859,  when  he  was  about  to  retire  from  the  governorship  of 
Ohio,  some  friends  were  expressing  their  regret  that  the  State  should  lose 
his  services.  One  of  the  company  said:  k  We  shall  not  lose  his  services. 
We  look  ahead — 

"  And  trust  the  larger  hope." : 

"  Mr.  Chase,  recognizing  the  quotation  from  Tennyson's  '  In  Memoriam, ' 
instantly  replied :  '  I  am  glad  you  did  not  quote  the  whole  line — 

"  And  faintly  trust  the  larger  hope. "  * 

"  Few  men  realized  more  fully  than  he  the  truth,  so  well  expressed  by 
Emerson,  that  '  there  is  no  hour  of  vexation  which,  on  a  little  reflection, 
will  not  find  diversion  and  relief  in  the  library. "> 

"  While  I  was  with  him,  he  frequently  threw  off  the  burdens  of  a  weary 
day,  by  reading  aloud,  or  repeating  from  memory,  the  exquisite  verses  of 
Tennyson,  Coventry  Patmore,  and  other  masters  of  song.  He  exhibited  a 
playful  and  childlike  spirit  in  his  hours  of  recreation,  which  was  in  curious 
and  very  interesting  contrast  with  his  severe  exterior  as  a  public  man.  I 
hope  your  book  will  give  to  the  public  that  view  of  his  characteristics  as  a 
reader  and  conversationalist  with  which  only  his  intimate  friends  were  ac 
quainted. 

"  Hoping  soon  to  see  your  volume  in  print,  I  am,  very  truly  yours, 

"J.  A.  GARFIELD." 

Extract  from  Mr.  Lloyd's  Article,  "  Home-Life  of  Salmon  Portland  Chase," 
in  Atlantic  Monthly,  November,  1873. 

"  During  the  latter  years  of  his  life,  but  before  his  paralytic  attack,  a 
yearning  came  over  him,  as  it  comes  to  so  many  lovers  of  Nature,  to  renew 
his  old  acquaintanceship  with  her  in  some  retreat  guarded  from  the  busy 
sights  and  sounds  of  a  city.  The  spot  selected  for  his  country-home  was 
necessarily  near  enough  to  town  to  permit  daily  and  convenient  attendance 
at  court,  and  yet  was  distant  enough  to  withdraw  him  from  bustle,  and 
retired  enough  to  shelter  him  from  intrusion.  It  was  no  inconsiderable 
domain  either ;  its  fifty-five  acres  came  to  be  dubbed  familiarly  '  The 
Duchy.'  It  lies  about  two  miles  from  the  city,  directly  north  of  the  Capi 
tol,  and  has  long  been  known  as  a  tract  which  it  was  proposed  to  turn  into 
a  summer  residence  for  the  President,  at  least  one  resolution  to  this  effect 
having  been  introduced  into  the  Senate  before  the  war,  with  the  design,  it 
is  said,  of  placing  the  new  Executive  mansion  where  the  house  of  the 
Chief-Justice  stood.  This  house,  though  built  many  years  before,  could 
hardly  have  been  fashioned  more  to  his  tastes.  Its  dimensions  were  so 
generous  that  its  building  is  said  to  have  been  interrupted  for  a  time  by 
lack  of  money,  the  father  of  the  future  owner  admitting  that  he  had 
'  agreed  to  pay  for  a  house,  but  not,'  said  he,  *  for  a  capitol.'  It  is  a 
plain,  massive,  three-story  brick  house,  with  nothing  of  modern  architect 
ural  frippery  about  it ;  'a  house  of  ample  halls,  broad  staircases,  lofty 
ceilings,  elaborate  and  old-fashioned  mouldings,  and  walls  that  might 
stand  for  centuries.  But  its  site  is  its  chief  beauty.  It  rises  boldly  from 
the  brow  of  a  hill,  which  slopes  rapidly  down  in  front  and  on  both  sides. 
On  either  hand,  the  ground  descends  to  rise  again  in  hills,  over  which  the 


628  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Chief-Justice  spent  many  an  hour  in  leisurely  walks.  In  front,  it  falls  ab 
ruptly  clown  and  rolls  away  toward  the  Potomac,  between  two  gentle 
ranges  of  hills ;  this  defile,  widening  as  it  advances,  opens  full  upon  the 
city,  with  its  houses  glistening  clean  and  white  in  the  sun,  while  the  Capi 
tol,  in  simple  majesty,  is  the  vanishing-point  of  the  picture.  It  is  a  most 
beautiful  view,  and,  unromantic  as  it  is,  has  all  the  moods  wilder  scenes 
are  so  rich  in.  No  vicissitude  of  storm  or  cloud  can  rob  it  of  its  beauty. 
In  the  mist  and  haze  of  morning,  the  bright,  full  glow  of  noon,  the  thick 
ening  gloom  of  dusk,  it  still  held  its  charm ;  and,  in  all  its  phases,  the 
Capitol,  in  which  so  much  of  the  life-work  of  the  veteran  statesman  had 
been  done,  was  the  centre  around  which  the  landscape  seemed  to  group 
itself.  In  this  beautiful  spot  he  lived  happily,  free  from  care,  though  not 
from  labor.  He  set  himself,  with  all  the  eagerness  of  a  convert,  to  learn 
the  ways  of  farmer-life,  watching  with  an  enthusiast's  care  the  advance  of 
his  fruits  and  crops,  walking  daily  over  his  little  territory  to  inspect  its 
condition,  and  often  pushing  into  the  woods  and  out  on  the  hills  beyond. 
It  was  a  simple  and  unostentatious  life,  with  nothing  to  mar  its  quietude." 


Rev.  Dr.  McMurdy  to  Mr.  ScTiuckers. 

"CHICAGO,  September  20,  1873. 

" .  .  .  .  My  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Chase  began  with  the  first  convention 
held  at  the  capital  of  Ohio,  for  the  formation  of  a  new  political  party,  in 
which  he  was  the  principal  actor.  Our  intimacy  continued  until  his  death. 
Shortly  after  our  second  annual  Liberty  Convention  in  Ohio,  he  wrote  me 

thus  :  '  Mr. was  wrong.     We  have  nothing  to  gain  for  our  cause  from 

the  ordinary  political  management  of  parties.  Our  principles,  our  cause, 
God,  and  the  people,  must  be  our  reliances.  We  shall  succeed  simply  be 
cause  we  are  right,  using  only  such  means  as  are  worthy  of  our  cause. 
Great  and  prevailing  our  party  may  become,  but  let  the  period  of  its  im 
purity — if  it  must  come — follow  the  attainment  of  its  great  object.'  .  .  . 
Again,  and  not  long  after,  he  wrote :  '  Universal  freedom  should  and  will 
be  accompanied  by  universal  brotherhood,  and  unrestricted  commercial 
intercourse.  .  .  .  There  is  a  Christian  view  to  take  of  every  question 
usually  regarded  as  merely  financial  or  political.  The  precepts  of  the 
Great  Master,  and  the  welfare  of  the  people,  must  ever  be  considered,  to 
make  our  nation  in  all  things  the  exemplar  and  the  guide  to  a  higher  and 
nobler  life  among  the  nations.'  Referring  to  the  efforts  for  his  nomination 
at  Chicago  in  1860,  he  wrote  :  '  I  do  not  like,  and  cannot  approve  of  some 
things.  They  are  beyond  my  control.  .  .  .  However  desirable  the  result 
to  my  friends  and  to  me,  it  is  valuable  and  available  only  as  secured  by 
the  most  elevated  means.  Personal  success  is  only  desirable  to  me  with 
that  of  the  principles  and  measures  to  which  I  have  consecrated  my  life. 
.  .  .  Office  is  only  to  be  desired  as  a  means  to  an  end.'  After  his  acces 
sion  to  a  place  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cabinet,  he  wrote :  '  God  may  humble  us, 
and  teach  us  our  dependence  upon  Him,  but  I  feel  assured  that  He  will 
make  us  a  free  and  united  people.  He  will  teach  us  the  Lenten  lesson : 
Undo  the  "burdens  and  let  the  oppressed  go  free?  When  three  stalwart  rebel 
prisoners  were  brought  into  Washington  from  the  first  battle  of  Bull  Run, 
as  they  passed  by  Willard's,  missiles  were  hurled  at  them  by  some  of  the 
excited  New  York  Zouaves,  as  it  was  supposed.  The  crowd  became  so 
furious  that  the  guards  bore  their  charge  into  the  basement  of  the  Treasury 
building  for  safety.  The  venerable  Bishop  Mcllvaine,  of  Ohio,  was  walk 
ing  with  me,  near  the  Treasury,  and  he  said :  '  This  is  not  right ;  some 
thing  must  be  done.'  Impulsively  I  exhorted  the  crowd  from  the  Treasury 


RECOLLECTIONS.  629 

steps,  urging  them  to  be  orderly  and  quiet,  and  not  to  injure  the  persons 
of  the  prisoners,  and  appealing  to  their  sense  of  honor  and  military  pro 
priety.     Mr.  Chase,  hearing  of  this,  wrote  me :  *  I  am  sorry  I  did  not  know 
at  the  time  of  your  noble  exertion.  .  .  .  How  difficult  to  ever  act  accord 
ing  to  rule  and  principle  !     We  are  prone  to  be  carried  away  by  the  pas 
sions  of  the  moment,  and  to  forget  that  these  are  misguided  men,  under 
the  influence  of  selfish  and  unpatriotic  leaders,  and  educated  under  local 
influences  and  sentiments.     Our  prisoners  must  be  treated  with  humanity, 
and  under  the  promptings  of  an  advanced  Christian  sentiment.    If  war 
cannot  be  prevented,  its  horrors  may  be  mitigated,  and  its  curse  dimin 
ished.'    When,  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  he  was  sorely  pressed  to  eject 
from  office  one  who  was  greatly  censured,  he  wrote :  *  I  know  it  would 
save  me  great  annoyance  to  yield  to  their  wishes ;  but has  been  faith 
ful  to  every  trust  reposed  in  him,  and  is  free  from  all  the  charges  alleged 
against  him.     I  shall  maintain  his  cause,  and  persist  in  being  his  unflinch 
ing  friend.'    Writing  of  the  efforts  made  to  bring  his  name  before  the 
Baltimore  Convention,  in  1864,  he  said :  *  I  will  consent  to  the  use  of  my 
name,  if  it  shall  be  developed  that  I  am  the  choice  of  the  party,  bat  I  will 
not  consent  to  its  use  beyond  the  ascertaining  of  the  popular  will,  and  in 
no  case  to  distract  the  party  and  nation.     I  cannot  use  my  official  power 
to  injure  another  or  benefit  myself  politically.'    And,  after  he  was  Chief- 
Justice,  of  certain  strictures  he  wrote  :  '  I  am  not  disturbed  by  the  criti 
cisms  of  my  opinions  and  the  imputations  of  unworthy  motives.     I  leave 
my  vindication  to  the  calm  judgment  of  the  future.    To  one  as  familiar  as 
yourself  with  my  early  views,  you  will  see  perfect  consistency  and  agree 
ment.      Censure  is  the  tax  which  a  man  pays  for  eminence  in  position.' 
And  of  the  efforts  to  nominate  him  at  New  York,  in  1868,  he  wrote :  '  They 
may  possibly  be  successful.     For  the  sake  of  the  country  I  trust  they  may 
be ;  for  thus  they  will  secure  a  new  departure,  and  union  and  liberty  will 
become  the  watchwords  of  the  whole  people,  and  growing  evils  will  be 
checked.'     In  June,  1868,  I  inclosed  him  a  note  from  a  prominent  Demo 
crat,  asking  his  political  views,  to  be  used  by  him  among  his  Democratic 
friends.     Mr.  Chase  sent  me  this  laconic  reply :  '  Washington,  June  24, 
1868.     MY  DEAR  DOCTOR:  I  am  so  much  oppressed  by  correspondence 
that  I  can  only  take  time  to  thank  you  for  your  recent  note.     You  must 
excuse  me  from  any  exposition  of  my  political  faith  at  this  time ;  but  be 
lieve  me,  very  sincerely  yours,  S.  P.  CHASE.'     In  the  summer  of  1872,  he 
wrote  me,  that  he  prayed  daily  that  when  he  had  '  served  God  in  my  gen 
eration,  that  I  may  be  gathered  unto  my  fathers,  having  the  testimony  of  a 
good  conscience  ;  in  the  communion  of  the  Catholic  Church  ;  in  the  confi 
dence  of  a  certain  faith;  in  the  comfort  of  a  reasonable,  religious,  and 
lowly  life ;  in  favor  with  and  in  charity  with  all  the  world.'    And  finally, 
not  long  before  his  death  :  1 1  cannot  confide  in  an  impersonal  idea,  but  in 
a  personal  God,  whose  touch  I  feel  and  whose  love  1  know;  the  Good 
Shepherd  whose  rod  and  staff  comfort  me,  and  whose  smile  will  light  up 
the  valley.  .  .  .' 

"  Yours  very  truly,  R.  McMuRDY." 

Miss  Eliza  Chase  Whipple  to  Mr.  Schuckers. 

"BOSTON,  Jtme  29,  1873. 

" .  .  .  .  My  earliest  recollections  of  my  uncle,  the  late  Chief-Justice,  date 
back  to  the  time  when  my  grandmother  Chase  lived  in  Hopkinton,  N.  H. ; 
and  must  have  been  when  he  was  a  student  in  Mr.  Wirt's  office  at  Washing 
ton.  He  was  on  a  visit  home,  to  attend  a  family  reunion,  at  which  I  was 
present. 

"  This  was  the  last  visit  he  ever  made  his  mother.    He  soon  after  went 


630  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

to  Cincinnati,  where,  when  he  was  established  in  business,  he  made  ar 
rangements  to  have  his  mother  and  sister  Helen  come  and  live  with  him. 
But,  alas  1  he  was  doomed  to  disappointment ;  for  the  mother  of  whom  he 
was  so  fond  and  so  proud  (my  grandmother  was  an  exceedingly  beautiful 
woman :  I  well  remember  her  lovely  face),  died  just  two  months  before  the 
time  fixed  for  her  departure  from  New  England. 

"  My  mother  constantly  corresponded  with  my  uncle  Salmon.  She  told 
me  how,  as  a  child,  his  love  of  reading  would  lead  him  to  stray  away  from 
playmates,  and  seek  some  quiet  place  with  little  Bessie  Marble — the  daugh 
ter  of  a  near  neighbor — and  read  stories  and  poetry  aloud  to  her.  My 
mother  told  me  that  once  when  her  father's  friend,  the  late  Jeremiah  Ma 
son,  of  Boston,  was  on  a  visit  at  Cornish,  that  gentleman  and  her  father 
were  out  walking,  and  came  unobserved  upon  little  Salmon,  who  was  utter 
ly  absorbed  in  his  book  (Rollin's  'Ancient  History ').  Grandfather  said, 
'  Mason,  there  is  a  boy  who  would  rather  read  than  play  any  time.'  To 
which  Mr.  Mason  answered,  '  A  boy  with  a  head  like  that  will  certainly 
make  his  mark  in  the  world ; '  for  my  uncle,  even  as  a  boy,  was  noticeable 
for  the  massiveness  of  his  head. 

"  Shortly  after  the  death  of  his  first  wife  I  went  with  him  to  Ohio. 
His  family  then  consisted  of  himself,  his  sister  Helen,  his  little  motherless 
child,  Kitty,  Jenny  Skinner  (another  niece),  and  myself.  He  did  a  great 
deal  of  his  law  work  at  home,  and  was  a  very  close  student.  He  never  re 
tired  until  after  ten  o'clock ;  and  then  always  had  two'  long  sperm-candles 
(there  was  no  gas  in  those  days)  placed  upon  the  table  at  his  bedside,  and 
when  the  morning  came  there  would  rarely  be  more  than  two  or  three 
inches  of  the  candles  remaining  in  the  sticks.  I  think,  if  he  had  not  been 
so  close  and  continuous  a  student,  he  might  yet  be  living. 

"  He  was  very  strict  at  that  time  of  his  life.  He  abominated  cards  and 
waltzes,  though  he  did  not  object  to  a  plain  quadrille.  There  was  no  going 
to  the  races  or  the  theatre  for  any  member  of  his  family.  He  was  very 
religious ;  and  almost  puritanical  in  his  observance  of  the  Sunday.  He 
would  not  even  allow  us  to  write  letters  on  Sunday. 

"  Shortly  after  the  death  of  his  second  wife,  he  had  what,  I  do  not  doubt 
from  what  I  could  learn,  was  a  slight  shock  of  paralysis.  He  was  a  good 
deal  alarmed,  for  many  of  his  relatives  had  died  from  that  cause,  and  he  at 
once  made  his  will.  He  felt  that  he  had  inherited  the  disease.  He  was 
unconscious  for  a  very  short  time,  however,  and  suffered  no  permanently 
ill  effects  from  the  attack.  .  .  . 

"  From  your  friend  very  truly, 

"  ELIZA  C.  WHIFFLE." 


APPENDIX. 


C31 


1 

•- 
Q 

i—  1  i—  i  <N  Tj<  OJ  VI          i—  1   CO  G<l  O4  i—  i  <M          <M  CM  CO   3>J  O4  <M          CM    "M  O-<    °°  (M  Ol           Ol  C 

cocococococo       co  co  co  cc  co  eo       eocococococo       co  co  co  %•  co  co       eo  e 

§3 

a 

o 

i 

<a 

S 
ft 

1 

o 

s 

o 

p 

3 
a 
.2 

OQ 
1 

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of 

3. 
2 

1 
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1 

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CO 

a 

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1      1      1      1      1      1  OQ    1      M      1      1      1  OQ     1      1      1      1      1      |  00     II         |  J         OQ    1 

1 

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1 

co       co  co  cb  co  eo  co       cocoioco-ctico       eoeocoeoeoco       co  co  CM  ~    CM  a; 

1  00    1      1     l\     1       GQ    1      1      1      1      1      1  OQ    1      1      1           1         02                1  j§    1      1  QQ 

<N         CO  (N  CO  CO  CO  CO         COCOCOCOCOCO         COeOCOCOCOCO         CO  <M  <N  t_,  CM  CO 

October. 

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II 

IS 

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L 

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1 

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^S    332323    2S2S33    S3S^S^    ^^SSSS 

"5 

1      1      1  S    1  OQ    II      1      1      II  GQ    1      1      1      II      1  GQ    1      1      I      I      1      1  02    1      1 

1 

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^. 

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.1 

Ol'M'^l          CO<MG^G^CO(>1          COCOCOCCCOCO          CCC^COCOCOCO         ^"^0^0^" 

I 

1                 1      1  OQ          1      1      1      1      1  GQ     1      1      1      1      1      1  m    \      \      \      \      \      \  OQ          I 

'. 

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S 

0 

1  3Q    1     1     1     1     1     1  OQ    1     1     1     1     1     1  r/j    II     1          1     1  00    1     1     1     1     1     1  OJ    1 

0 

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1  February. 

0         OOOOOO         OOOOOO         OOOOOO         OOOOO 

I 

OoJJj                loQ    1     1     1     1     1     I«J    1     1     1           1     loQ    1     1     1     1     1 

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IN 

i 
1 

2  :  :  '-a  •  :  '  '  :  :QQ  1  1  1  1  1  Id  1  1  1  1  1  1  x        l77 

632 


PRICE   OF  GOLD  EACH  DAY  IN   1863. 


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PRICE   OF  GOLD   EACH  DAY  IX   1864. 


633 


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CO  ••*<-*  ^  CO  • 


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Tr. 


CM  CM  CM      •  CM  CM         CM 

III   :  II  od  I 


rHCOCO       •i—C5  COCM-^COlCTtl 

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CM  CM  CM   •  CM  CM 


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EULOG-T  ON  MR  CHASE, 

DELIVERED   BEFORE   THE   ALUMNI   OF   DARTMOUTH   COLLEGE,  JUNE  24, 1874, 

BY  WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS. 


ME.  PEESIDENT  AND  GENTLEMEN,  THE  ALUMNI  or  DART 
MOUTH  COLLEGE  :  "When,  not  many  weeks  since,  the  com 
mittee  of  your  association  did  me  the  honor  to  invite  me  to 
present,  in  an  address  to  the  assembled  graduates  of  the  college, 
a  commemoration  of  the  life,  the  labors,  and  the  fame  of  the 
very  eminent  man  and  greatly  honored  scholar  of  your  disci 
pline,  lawyer,  orator,  senator,  minister,  magistrate,  whom  living 
a  whole  nation  admired  and  revered,  whom  dead  a  whole  na 
tion  laments,  I  felt  that  neither  a  just  sense  of  public  duty  nor 
the  obligations  of  personal  affection  would  permit  me  to  decline 
the  task.  Yielding,  perhaps  too  readily,  to  the  persuasions  of 
your  committee  that  somewhat  close  professional  and  public 
association  with  the  Chief -Justice  in  the  later  years  of  his  life, 
and  the  intimate  enjoyment  of  his  personal  friendship,  might 
excuse  my  want  of  that  binding  tie  of  fellowship  in  a  commemo 
ration,  in  which  the  venerated  college  does  dutiful  honor  to  a 
son,  and  the  assembled  alumni  crown  with  their  affection  the 
memory  of  a  brother,  I  dismissed  also,  upon  the  same  persua 
sion,  all  anxious  solicitudes,  which  otherwise  would  have  op 
pressed  me,  lest  importunate  and  inextricable  preoccupations  of 
time  and  mind  should  disable  me  from  presenting  as  consider 
able,  and  as  considerate,  a  survey  of  the  eminent  character  and 
celebrated  career  of  Mr.  Chase  as  should  comport  with  them,  or 
satisfy  the  just  exigencies  of  the  occasion. 


636  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

The  commemoration  which  brings  us  together  has  about  it 
nothing  funereal,  in  sentiment  or  observance,  to  darken  our 
minds  or  sadden  our  hearts  to-day.  The  solemn  rites  of  sepul 
ture,  the  sobbings  of  sorrowing  affection,  the  homage  of  public 
grief,  the  concourse  of  the  great  officers  of  state,  the  assem 
blage  of  venerable  judges,  the  processions  of  the  bar,  of  the 
clergy,  of  liberal  and  learned  men,  the  attendant  crowds  of 
citizens  of  every  social  rank  and  station,  both  in  the  great  city 
where  he  died,  and  at  the  national  capital,  have  already  graced 
his  burial  with  all  imaginable  dignity  and  unmeasured  rever 
ence.  To  prolong  or  renew  this  pious  office  is  no  part  of  our 
duty  to-day.  Nor  is  the  maturity  or  nurture  which  the  college 
gives  to  those  it  calls  its  sons,  bestowed  as  it  is  upon  their  mind 
and  character,  affected  by  the  death  of  the  body  as  is  the  heart 
of  the  natural  mother ;  nor  are  you,  his  brethren  in  this  foster 
care  of  the  spirit,  bowed  with  the  same  sense  of  bereavement 
as  are  natural  kindred.  The  filial  and  fraternal  relation  which 
he  bore  to  you,  the  college  and  the  alumni,  is  hardly  broken  by 
his  death,  nor  is  he  hidden  from  you  by  his  burial.  His  com 
pleted  natural  life  is  but  the  assurance  and  perpetuation  of  the 
power,  the  fame,  the  example,  which  the  discipline  and  culture 
here  bestowed  had  for  their  object,  and  in  which  they  find 
their  continuing  and  ever-increasing  glory.  The  energy  here 
engendered  has  not  ceased  its  beneficent  activity,  the  torch  here 
lighted  still  diffuses  its  illumination,  and  the  fires  here  kindled 
still  radiate  their  heat. 

Not  less  certain  is  it  that  the  spirit  of  this  commemoration 
imposes  no  task  of  vindication  or  defense,  and  tolerates  no  tone 
of  adulation  or  applause.  The  tenor  of  this  life,  the  manifesta 
tion  of  this  character,  was  open  and  public,  before  the  eyes  of 
all  men,  upon  an  eminent  stage  of  action,  displayed  constantly 
on  the  high  places  of  the  world.  No  faculty  that  Mr.  Chase 
possessed,  no  preparation  of  mind  or  of  spirit,  for  great  under 
takings  or  for  notable  achievements,  ever  failed  of  exercise  or 
exhibition  for  want  of  opportunity,  or,  being  exercised  or  ex 
hibited,  missed  commensurate  recognition  or  responsive  plaudits 
from  his  countrymen.  His  career  shows  no  step  backward, 
the  places  he  filled  were  all  of  the  highest,  the  services  he  ren 
dered  were  the  most  difficult  as  well  as  the  most  eminent.  If, 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS'S  EULOGY  ON  MR.  CHASE.  637 

as  the  preacher  proclaims,  "  time  and  chance  happeneth  to  all," 
the  times  in  which  Mr.  Chase  lived  permitted  the  widest  scope 
to  great  abilities  and  the  noblest  forms  of  public  service ;  and 
the  fortunes  of  his  life  show  the  felicity  of  the  occasions  which 
befell  him  to  draw  out  these  abilities,  and  to  receive  these  ser 
vices.  Not  less  complete  was  the  round  of  public  honors  which 
crowned  his  pubh'c  labors,  and  we  have  no  occasion,  here,  to 
lament  any  shortcomings  of  prosperity  or  favor,  or  repeat  the 
authentic  judgment  which  the  voices  of  his  countrymen  have 
pronounced  upon  his  fame. 

The  simple  office,  then,  which  seems  to  me  marked  out  for 
one  who  assumes  this  deputed  service  in  the  name  of  the  col 
lege  and  for  the  friends  of  good  learning,  is,  in  so  far  as  the 
just  limits  of  time  and  circumstance  wTill  permit,  to  expose  the 
main  features  of  this  celebrated  life,  "  to  decipher  the  man  and 
his  nature,"  to  connect  the  true  elements  of  his  character  and 
the  moulding  force  of  his  education  with  the  work  he  did,  with 
the  influence  he  wielded  in  life,  with  the  power  of  the  example 
which  lives  after  him,  and  always  to  have  in  view,  as  the  most 
fruitful  uses  of  the  hour,  his  relations  to  the  men  and  events  of 
his  times,  and,  not  less,  his  true  place  in  history  among  the 
lawyers,  orators,  statesmen,  magistrates  of  the  land.  Vera  non 
verba  is  our  maxim  to-day ;  truth,  not  words,  must  mark  the 
tribute  the  college  pays  to  the  sober  dignity  and  solid  worth  of 
its  distinguished  son. 

Born  of  a  lineage,  which  on  the  father's  side  dates  its  Ameri 
can  descent  from  the  Puritan  emigration  of  1640,  and  on  the 
mother's,  finds  her  the  first  of  that  stock  native  to  this  country, 
the  son  of  these  parents  took  no  contrariety  of  traits  from  the 
union  of  the  blood  of  the  English  Puritans  and  the  Scotch  Cov 
enanters,  but  rather  harmonious  corroboration  of  the  character 
istics  of  both.  These,  sturdy  enough  in  either,  combined  in 
this  descendant  to  produce  as  independent  and  resolute  a  nature 
for  the  conflicts  and  labors  of  his  day,  as  any  experience  of  trial 
or  triumph,  of  proscription  or  persecution  suffered  or  resisted, 
had  required  or  supplied  in  the  long  history  of  the  contests  of 
these  two  congenial  races  with  priests  and  potentates,  with  prin 
cipalities  and  powers.  Nothing  could  be  less  consonant  with  a 
just  estimate  of  the  strong  traits  of  this  lineage,  than  which 


IP 

UNIVERSITY) 


638  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

neither  Hebrew,  nor  Grecian,  nor  Roman  nurture  has  wrought 
for  its  heroes  either  a  firmer  fibre  or  a  nobler  virtue,  than  to  as 
cribe  its  chief  power  to  enthusiasm  or  fanaticism.  Plain,  sober, 
practical  men  and  women  as  they  were,  there  was  no  hard  detail 
of  every-day  life  that  they  were  not  equal  to,  no  patient  and 
cheerless  sacrifice  they  could  not  endure,  no  vicissitude  of  adverse 
or  prosperous  fortune  which  they  could  not  meet  with  un 
checked  serenity.  If  it  be  enthusiasm  that  in  them  the  fear  of 
God  had  cast  out  the  fear  of  man,  or  fanaticism  that  they  placed 
"  things  that  are  spiritually  discerned "  above  the  vain  shows 
of  the  world  of  sense,  in  so  far  they  were  enthusiasts  and  fanat 
ics.  In  every  stern  conflict,  in  every  vast  labor,  in  every  intel 
lectual  and  moral  development  of  which  this  country  has  been  the 
scene,  without  fainting  or  weariness  they  have  borne  their  part, 
and  in  the  conclusive  triumph  of  the  principles  of  the  Puritans 
and  their  policies  over  all  discordant,  all  opposing  elements, 
which  enter  into  the  wide  comprehension  of  American  nation 
ality,  theirs  be  the  praise  which  belongs  to  such  well-doing. 

The  son  of  a  farmer — a  man  of  substance,  and  of  credit  with 
his  neighbors,  and  not  less  with  the  people  of  his  State-  -young 
Chase  drew  from  his  boyhood  the  vigor  of  body  and  o±  mind 
which  rural  life  and  labors  are  well  calculated  to  nourish.  Sev 
eral  of  his  father's  brothers  were  graduates  of  this  college,  and 
reached  high  positions  in  Church  and  State.  An  unpropitious 
turn  of  the  commercial  affairs  of  the  countiy  nipped,  with  its 
frost,  the  growing  prosperity  of  his  father,  whose  death,  soon 
following,  left  him,  in  tender  years,  and  as  one  of  a  numerous 
family,  to  the  sole  care  of  his  mother.  With  most  scanty  means, 
her  thrift  and  energy  sufficed  to  save  her  children  from  igno 
rance  or  declining  manners ;  maintained  their  self-respect  and 
independence;  set  them  forth  in  the  world  well  disciplined, 
stocked  with  good  principles,  and  inspired  with  proud  and 
honorable  purposes.  To  the  praise  of  this  excellent  woman, 
wherever  the  name  of  her  great  son  shall  be  proclaimed,  this, 
too,  shall  be  told  in  remembrance  of  her:  that  a  Christian's 
faith,  and  a  mother's  love,  as  high  and  pure  as  ever  ennobled 
the  most  famous  matrons  of  history,  stamped  the  character  and 
furnished  the  education  which  equipped  him  for  the  labors  and 
the  triumphs  of  his  life.  One  cannot  read  her  letters  to  her  son 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS'S  EULOGY  ON  MR.  CHASE.  639 

in  college  without  the  deepest  emotion.  How  many  such  women 
were  there,  in  the  plain  ranks  of  New  England  life,  in  her  gen 
eration  !  How  many  are  there  now !  Paying  marvelous  little 
heed  to  the  discussion  of  women's  rights,  they  show  a  wonderful 
addiction  to  the  performance  of  women's  duties. 

His  uncle,  Bishop  Chase  of  Ohio,  assumed,  for  a  time,  the 
care  and  expense  of  his  education,  and  this  drew  him  to  the 
AVest,  where,  under  this  tutelage,  he  pursued  academic  studies 
for  two  years.  At  the  end  of  this  time  he  returned  to  his 
mother's  charge,  entered  the  junior  class  of  Dartmouth  College, 
and  graduated  in  the  year  1826,  at  the  age  of  eighteen.  The 
only  significance,  in  its  impression  on  his  future  life,  of  this  brief 
guardianship  of  the  Western  Bishop,  was  as  the  determining  in 
fluence  which  fixed  the  chief  city  of  the  West  in  his  choice  as 
the  forum  and  arena  of  his  professional  and  public  life.  After 
spending  four  years  in  Washington,  gaining  his  subsistence  by 
teaching,  a  law-student  with  Mr.  Wirt — then  at  the  zenith  of  his 
faculties  and  his  fame — studying  men  and  manners  at  the  cap 
ital,  watching  the  new  questions  then  shaping  themselves  for 
political  action,  observing  the  celebrated  statesmen  of  the  day, 
conversant  with  the  great  Chief- Justice  Marshall  and  his  learned 
associates  qn  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  with  Web 
ster,  and  Binney,  and  other  famous,  lawyers  at  its  bar,  he  was 
admitted  to  practice,  and,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  established 
himself  at  Cincinnati,  transferring  thus,  once  and  forever,  his 
home  from  the  New  England  of  his  family,  his  birth,  his  educa 
tion,  and  his  love,  to  the  ruder  but  equally  strenuous  and  more 
expansive  society  of  the  West. 

While  yet  of  tender  years,  following  up  the  earlier  pious  in 
struction  of  his  mother,  and  his  own  profound  sense  of  religious 
obligations  under  .the  inculcation  of  the  Bishop,  he  accepted  the 
Episcopal  Church  as  the  body  of  Christian  believers  in  whose 
communion  he  found  the  best  support  for  the  religious  life  he 
proposed  to  himself.  When  he  left  your  college  he  had  not 
wholly  relinquished  a  purpose,  once  held,  of  adopting  the  cleri 
cal  profession.  His  adhesion  to  the  Christian  faith  was  simple 
and  constant  and  sincere,  and  he  accepted  it  as  the  master  and 
rule  of  his  life,  in  devout  confidence  in  the  moral  government  of 
the  world,  as  a  present  and  real  supremacy  over  the  race  of  man 


640  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

and  all  human  affairs.  He  was  all  his  life  a  great  student  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  no  modern  speculations  ever  shook  the  solid  rea 
sons  of  his  belief.  When  he  entered  the  city  of  Washington, 
fresh  from  college,  "the  earnest  prayer  of  his  heart  was,  that 
God  would  give  him  work  to  do,  and  success  in  doing  it." 
When  he  was  laying  out  the  plans  of  professional  life,  on  his 
first  establishment  at  Cincinnati,  his  invocation  was,  "  May  God 
enable  me  to  be  content  with  the  consciousness  of  faithfully  dis 
charging  all  my  duties,  and  deliver  me  from  a  too  eager  thirst 
for  the  applause  and  favor  of  men."  All  through  the  successive 
and  manifold  activities  of  his  busy  and  strenuous  life,  when,  to 
outward  seeming,  they  were  all  worldly  and  personal,  the  same 
predominant  sense  of  duty  and  religious  responsibility  animated 
and  solemnized  the  whole. 

At  this  point  in  his  life  we  may  draw  the  line  between  the 
period  of  education  for  the  work  he  had  before  him  and  that 
work  itself.  What  Mr.  Chase  was,  at  this  time,  in  all  the  essen 
tial  traits  of  his  moral  and  intellectual  character — in  his  views  of 
life,  its  value,  its  just  objects  and  aims,  its  social,  moral,  and  re 
ligious  responsibilities;  in  his  views  of  himself,  his  duties,  obli 
gations,  prospects,  and  possibilities;  in  his  determinations  and 
desires — such,  it  seems  to  me  from  the  most  attentive  study  of 
all  these  points — such,  in  a  very  marked  degree,  he  continued  to 
be  at  every  stage  of  his  ascent  in  life. 

What,  then,  shall  we  assign  as  the  decisive  elements,  the  con 
trolling  constituents,  of  character — and  what  the  assurance  of 
their  persistence  and  their  force — which  this  youth  could  bring 
to  the  service  of  the  State,  or  contribute  to  the  advancement  of 
society  and  the  well-being  of  mankind  ? 

These  were  simple,  but,  in  combination,  powerful,  and  ade 
quate  to  fill  out  worthily  the  life  of  large  opportunities  which, 
though  not  yet  foreseen  to  himself,  was  awaiting  him. 

The  faculty  of  reason  was  very  broad  and  strong  in  him,  yet 
without  being  vast  or  surprising.  It  seized  the  sensible  and 
practical  relations  of  all  subjects  submitted  to  it,  and  firmly  held 
them  in  its  tenacious  grasp ;  it  exposed  these  relations  to  the  ap 
prehension  of  those  whose  opinion  or  action  it  behooved  him  to 
influence,  by  methods  direct  and  sincere,  discarding  mere  inge 
nuity,  and  disdaining  the  subtleness  of  insinuation.  His  educa- 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS'S  EULOGY  ON  MR.  CHASE.  641 

tion  had  all  been  of  a  kind  to  discipline  and  invigorate  his  nat 
ural  powers ;  not  to  encumber  them  with  a  besetting  weight  of 
learning,  or  to  supplant  them  by  artificial  training. 

His  oratory  was  vigorous,  with  those  "-qualities  of  clearness, 
force,  and  earnestness,  which  produce  conviction."  His  rhetoric 
was  ample,  but  not  rich ;  his  illustrations  apposite,  but  seldom 
to  the  point  of  wit ;  his  delivery  weighty  and  imposing. 

His  force  of  will,  whether  in  respect  of  peremptoriness  or 
persistency,  was  prodigious.  His  courage  to  brave,  and  his 
fortitude  to  endure,  were  absolute.  His  loyalty  to  every  cause 
in  which  he  enlisted — his  fidelity  in  every  warfare  in  which  he 
took  up  arms — were  proof  against  peril  and  disaster. 

His  estimate  of  human  affairs,  and  of  his  own  relation  to 
them,  was  sober  and  sedate.  All  their  grandeur  and  splendor, 
to  his  apprehension,  connected  themselves  with  the  immortal 
life,  and  with  God,  as  their  guide,  overseer,  and  ruler ;  and  the 
sum  of  the  practical  wisdom  of  all  worthy  personal  purposes 
seemed  to  him  to  be,  to  discern  the  path  of  duty,  and  to  pur 
sue  it. 

His  views  of  the  commonwealth  were  essentially  Puritan. 
Equality  of  right,  community  of  interest,  reciprocity  of  duty, 
were  the  adequate,  and  the  only  adequate,  principles  with  him 
to  maintain  the  strength  and  virtue  of  society,  and  preserve  the 
power  and  permanence  of  the  State.  With  these  principles  un 
impaired  and  unimpeded  he  feared  nothing  for  his  countrymen 
or  their  government,  and  he  made  constant  warfare  upon  every 
assault  or  menace  that  endangered  them. 

It  was  with  these  endowments  and  with  this  preparation  of 
spirit,  that  Mr.  Chase  confronted  the  realities  of  life,  and  as 
sumed  to  play  a  part  which,  whether  humble  or  high  in  the  scale 
and  plane  of  circumstance,  was  sure  to  be  elevated  and  worthy 
in  itself ;  for  the  loftiness  of  his  spirit  for  the  conflict  of  life  was 

"Such  as  raised 

To  height  of  noblest  temper  heroes  old 
Arming  to  battle." 

Such  a  character  necessarily  confers  authority  among  men, 
and  that  Mr.  Chase  was  ready,  on  all  occasions  arising,  to  assert 
his  high  principles  by  comporting  action  was  never  left  in  doubt. 
41 


642  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

Whether  by  interposing  his  strong  arm  to  save  Mr.  Bimey  from 
the  fury  of  a  mob  of  Cincinnati  gentlemen,  incensed  at  the  free 
dom  of  his  press  in  its  defiance  of  slavery ;  or  by  his  bold  and 
constant  maintenance  in  the  courts  of  the  cause  of  fugitive 
slaves  in  the  face  of  the  resentments  of  the  public  opinion  of 
the  day ;  or  by  his  fearless  desertion  of  all  reigning  politics  to 
lead  a  feeble  band  of  protestants  through  the  wilderness  of  anti- 
slavery  wanderings,  its  pillar  of  cloud  by  day,  its  pillar  of  fire 
by  night;  or  as  Governor  of  Ohio  facing  the  intimidations  of 
the  slave  States,  backed  by  Federal  power  and  a  storm  of 
popular  passion ;  or  in  consolidating  the  triumphant  politics  on 
the  urgent  issue  which  was  to  flame  out  into  rebellion  and  re 
volt  ;  or  in  his  serene  predominance,  during  the  trial  of  the 
President,  over  the  rage  of  party  hate  which  brought  into  peril 
the  coordination  of  the  great  departments  of  Government,  and 
threatened  its  whole  frame — in  all  these  marked  instances  of 
public  duty,  as  in  the  simple  routine  of  his  ordinary  conduct, 
Mr.  Chase  asked  but  one  question  to  determine  his  course  of 
action,  "  Is  it  right  ? "  If  it  were,  he  had  strength,  and  will, 
and  courage  to  carry  him  through  with  it. 

In  the  ten  years  of  professional  life  which  followed  his  ad 
mission  to  the  bar,  Mr.  Chase  established  a  repute  for  ability, 
integrity,  elevation  of  purpose  and  capacity  for  labor,  which 
would  have  surely  brought  him  the  highest  rewards  of  forensic 
prosperity  and  distinction,  and  in  due  course,  of  eminent  judicial 
station.  In  this  quieter  part  of  his  life,  as  in  his  public  career,  it 
is  noticeable  that  his  employments  were  never  common-place,  but 
savored  of  a  public  zest  and  interest.  His  compilation  of  the 
Ohio  Statutes  was  a  magnum  opus,  indeed,  for  the  leisure  hours 
of  a  young  lawyer,  and  possesses  a  permanent  value,  justifying 
the  assurance  Chancellor  Kent  gave  him,  that  this  surprising 
labor  would  find  its  "  reward  in  the  good  he  had  done,  in  the 
talents  he  had  shown,  and  in  the  gratitude  of  his  profession." 

But  this  quiet  was  soon  broken,  never  to  be  resumed,  and 
though  the  great  office  of  Chief-Justice  was  in  store  for  him,  it 
was  to  be  reached  by  the  path  of  statesmanship  and  not  of 
jurisprudence. 

If  it  had  seemed  ever  to  Mr.  Chase  and  his  youthful  con 
temporaries,  that  they  had  come  upon  times  when,  as  Sir  Thomas 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS'S  EULOGY  ON  MR.  CHASE.  643 

Browne  thought  two  hundred  years  ago,  "  it  is  too  late  to  be 
ambitious,"  and  "  the  great  mutations  of  the  world  are  acted," 
the  illusion  was  soon  dispelled.  It  has  been  sadly  said  of  Greece 
in  the  age  of  Plutarch,  that  "  all  her  grand  but  turbulent  activi 
ties,  all  her  noble  agitations  spent,  she  was  only  haunted  by  the 
spectres  of  her  ancient  renown."  No  doubt,  forty  years  ago, 
in  this  country,  there  was  a  prevalent  feeling  that  the  age  of 
the  early  settlements  and,  again,  of  our  War  of  Independence, 
had  closed  the  heroic  chapters  of  our  history,  and  left  nothing 
for  the  public  life  of  our  later  times,  but  peaceful  and  progressive 
development,  and  the  calm  virtues  of  civil  prudence,  to  work 
out  of  our  system  all  incongruities  and  discords.  But  what 
these  political  speculations  assigned  as  the  passionless  wrork  of 
successive  generations,  was  to  be  done  in  our  time,  and,  as  it 
were,  in  one  "  unruly  right." 

Mr.  Chase  had  supported  General  Harrison  for  the  presi 
dency  in  1840,  not  upon  any  very  thorough  identification  with 
Whig  politics,  but  partly  from  a  natural  tendency  toward  the 
personal  fortunes  of  a  candidate  from  the  West,  and  from  his 
own  State,  in  the  absence  of  any  strong  attraction  of  principle 
to  draw  him  to  the  candidate  or  the  politics  of  the  Democratic 
party.  But,  upon  the  death  of  Harrison  and  the  elevation  of 
Tyler  to  the  presidency,  Mr.  Chase,  promptly  discerning  the 
signs  of  the  times,  took  the  initiative  toward  making  the  national 
attitude  and  tendency  on  the  subject  of  slavery  the  touchstone 
of  politics..  Politic  and  prudent  by  nature,  and  with  no  per 
sonal  disappointments  or  grievances  to  bias  his  course,  he  doubt 
less  would  have  preferred  to  save  and  use  the  accumulated  and 
organized  force  of  one  or  the  other  of  the  political  parties  which 
divided  the  country,  and  press  its  power  into  the  service  of  the 
principles  and  the  political  action  which  he  had,  undoubtingly, 
decided  the  honor  and  interests  of  the  country  demanded.  He 
was  among  the  first  of  the  competent  and  practical  political 
thinkers  of  the  day,  to  penetrate  the  superficial  crust  which 
covered  the  slumbering  fires  of  our  politics,  and  to  plan  for  the 
guidance  of  their  irrepressible  heats  so  as  to  save  the  constituted 
liberties  of  the  nation,  if  not  from  convulsion,  at  least  from  con 
flagration.  He  found  the  range  of  political  thought  and  action, 
which  either  party  permitted  to  itself  or  to  its  rival,  compressed 


644  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

by  two  unyielding  postulates.  The  first  of  these  insisted,  that 
the  safety  of  the  republic  would  tolerate  no  division  of  parties, 
in  Federal  politics,  which  did  not  run  through  the  slave  States 
as  well  as  the  free.  The  second  was  that  no  party  could  main 
tain  a  footing  in  the  slave  States,  that  did  not  concede  the 
nationality  of  the  institution  of  slavery  and  its  right,  in  equality 
with  all  the  institutions  of  freedom,  to  grow  with  the  growth 
and  strengthen  with  the  strength  of  the  American  Union. 
Nothing  can  be  more  interesting  to  a  student  of  politics  than 
the  masterly  efforts  of  patriotism  and  statesmanship,  in  which 
all  the  great  men  of  the  country  participated,  for  many  years, 
to  confine  the  perturbations  of  our  public  life  to  a  controversy 
with  this  latter  and  lesser  postulate.  Seward  with  the  "Whig 
party,  Chase  with  the  Democratic  party,  and  a  host  of  others  in 
both,  tried  hard  to  conciliate  the  irreconcilable,  and  to  stultify 
astuteness,  to  the  acceptance  of  the  proposition  that  slavery,  its 
growth  girdled,  would  not  be  already  struck  with  death.  Quite 
early,  however,  Mr.  Chase  grappled  with  the  primary  postulate, 
and  through  great  labors,  wise  counsels,  long-suffering  patience, 
and  by  the  successive  stages  of  the  Liberty  party,  Independent 
Democracy,  and  Free-Soil  party,  led  up  the  way  to  the  Repub 
lican  party,  which,  made  up  by  the  Whig  party  dropping  its 
slave  State  constituency,  and  the  Democratic  party  losing  its 
Free-Soil  constituents,  rent  this  primary  postulate  of  our  poli 
tics  in  twain,  and  took  possession  of  the  Government  by  the 
election  of  its  candidate,  Mr.  Lincoln. 

This  movement  in  politics  was  one  of  prodigious  difficulty 
and  immeasurable  responsibility.  It  was  so  felt  to  be  by  the 
prime  actors  in  it,  though  with  greatly  varying  largeness  of  survey 
and  depth  of  insight.  In  the  system  of  American  politics  it 
created  as  vast  a  disturbance  as  would  a  mutation  of  the  earth's 
axis,  or  the  displacement  of  the  solar  gravitation,  in  our  natural 
world.  This  great  transaction  filled  the  twenty  years  of  Mr. 
Chase's  mature  manhood,  say,  from  the  age  of  thirty  to  that  of 
fifty  years.  He  must  be  awarded  the  full  credit  of  having 
understood,  resolved  upon,  planned,  organized,  and  executed, 
this  political  movement,  and  whether  himself  leading  or  coop 
erating  or  following  in  the  array  and  march  of  events,  his  plan, 
his  part,  his  service,  were  all  for  the  cause,  its  prosperity,  and  its 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS'S  EULOGY  ON  MR.  CHASE.  645 

success.  To  one  who  considers  this  career,  not  as  completed  and 
triumphant,  not  with  the  glories  of  power,  and  dignities,  and 
fame  which  attended  it,  not  with  the  blessings  of  a  liberated  race, 
a  consolidated  Union,  an  ennobled  nationality  which  receive  the 
plaudits  of  his  countrymen,  but  as  its  hazards  and  renunciations, 
its  toils  and  its  perils,  showed  at  the  outset,  in  contrast  with  the 
ease  and  splendor  of  his  personal  fortunes  which  adhesion  to  the 
political  power  of  slavery  seemed  to  insure  to  him,  and  then  con 
templates  the  promptness  of  his  choice  and  the  steadfastness  of 
his  perseverance,  the  impulse  and  the  action  seem  to  find  a  paral 
lel  in  the  life  of  the  great  Hebrew  statesman,  who,  "  ly  faith, 
when  he  was  come  to  years,  refused  to  be  called  the  son  of  Pha 
raoh's  daughter,"  and  "  ly  faith,  forsook  Egypt,  not  fearing  the 
wrath  of  the  king." 

The  first  half  of  this  period  of  twenty  years  witnessed  only 
the  preliminaries,  equally  brave  and  sagacious,  of  agitation,  pro 
mulgation  of  purposes  and  opinions,  consultations,  conventions, 
and  political  organizations,  more  and  more  comprehensive  and 
effective.  All  this  time  Mr.  Chase  was  simply  a  citizen,  and 
apparently  could  expect  no  political  station  or  authority  till  it 
should  come  from  the  prosperous  fortunes  of  the  party  he  was 
striving  to  create.  Suddenly,  by  a  surprising  conjunction  of 
circumstances  he  was  lifted,  at  one  bound,  to  the  highest  and 
widest  sphere  of  influence,  upon  the  opinion  of  the  country, 
which  our  political  establishment  presents — I  mean  the  Senate 
of  the  United  States.  The  elective  body,  the  Legislature  of 
Ohio,  was  filled  in  almost  equal  numbers  with  "Whigs  and  Dem 
ocrats,  but  a  handful  of  Liberty  party  men  held  the  control  to 
prevent  or  determine  a  majority.  They  elected  Mr.  Chase. 
The  concurrence  is  similar,  in  its  main  features,  to  the  election 
of  Mr.  Sumner  to  the  Senate,  two  years  afterward,  in  Massachu 
setts.  Much  criticism  of  such  results  is  always  and  necessarily 
excited.  The  true  interpretation  of  such  transactions  is  simply  a 
transition  state  from  old  to  new  politics,  wherein  party  names 
and  present  interests  are  unchanged,  but  opinions  and  projects  and 
prospects  are  taking  a  new  shape,  and  the  old  mint,  all  at  once, 
astonishes  everybody  by  striking  a  new  image  and  superscription, 
soon  to  be  stamped  upon  the  whole  coinage.  The  part  of  Mr. 
Chase  in  this  election,  as  of  Mr.  Sumner  in  his  own,  was  elevated 


646  LIFE  OP  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

and  without  guile.  His  term  in  the  Senate  brought  him  to  the 
year  1856,  and  was  followed  by  two  successive  elections  and  four 
years'  service  as  Governor  of  Ohio,  and  a  reelection  to  the  Sen 
ate.  In  these  high  stations  he  added  public  authority  to  his 
opinions  and  purposes,  and  gained  for  them  wider  and  wider  in 
fluence,  while  he  discharged  all  general  senatorial  duties,  and 
official  functions  as  Governor,  with  benefit  to  the  legislation  of 
the  nation  and  to  the  administration  of  the  State. 

As  the  presidential  election  approached  and  the  Republican 
party  took  the  field  with  an  assurance  of  assuming  the  admin 
istration  of  the  Federal  Government,  and  of  meeting  the  weighty 
responsibility  of  the  new  political  basis,  the  question  of  candi 
dates  absorbed  the  attention  of  the  party,  and  attracted  the  inter 
est  of  the  whole  country.  "When  a  new  dynasty  is  to  be  en 
throned,  the  personality  of  the  ruler  is  an  element  of  the  first 
importance.  In  the  general  judgment  of  the  country,  and 
equally  to  the  apprehension  of  the  mass  of  his  own  party  and  of 
its  rival,  Mr.  Seward  stood  as  the  natural  candidate,  and  upon 
manifold  considerations.  His  unquestioned  abilities,  his  un 
doubted  fidelity,  his  vast  services  and  wide  following  in  the  party, 
presented  an  unprecedented  combination  of  political  strength  to 
obtain  the  nomination  and  carry  the  election,  and  of  adequate 
faculties  and  authority  with  the  people  for  the  prosperous  ad 
ministration  of  the  presidential  office.  Second  only  to  Mr. 
Seward,  in  this  general  judgment  of  his  countrymen,  stood  Mr. 
Chase,  with  just  enough  of  preference  for  him,  in  some  quarters, 
over  Mr.  Seward,  upon  limited  and  special  considerations,  to  en 
courage  that  darling  expedient  of  our  politics  a  resort  to  a  third 
candidate.  This  recourse  was  had,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  nomi 
nated  and  elected. 

The  disclosure  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  eyes  of  his  countrymen 
as  a  possible,  probable,  actual  candidate  for  the  presidency  came 
upon  them  with  the  suddenness  and  surprise  of  a  revelation. 
His  advent  to  power  as  the  ruler  of  a  great  people,  in  the  su 
preme  juncture  of  their  affairs,  to  be  the  head  of  the  state 
among  its  tried  and  trusted  statesmen,  to  subordinate  and  co 
ordinate  the  pride  and  ambition  of  leaders,  the  passions  and  in 
terests  of  the  masses,  and  to  guide  the  destinies  of  a  nation 
whose  institutions  were  all  framed  for  obedience  to  law  and  per- 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS'S  EULOGY  ON  MR.  CHASE.  647 

petual  domestic  peace,  through  rebellion,  revolt,  and  civil  war ; 
and  to  the  subversion  of  the  very  order  of  society  of  a  vast  ter 
ritory  and  a  vast  population,  finds  no  parallel  in  history ;  and 
was  a  puzzle  to  all  the  astrologers  and  soothsayers.  It  has  been 
said  of  George  III. — whose  narrow  intellect  and  obstinate  tem 
per  so  greatly  helped  on  the  rebellion  of  our  ancestors  to  our 
independence — it  has  been  said  of  George  III.,  that  "  it  was  his 
misfortune  that,  intended  by  nature  to  be  a  farmer,  accident 
placed  him  on  a  throne."  It  was  the  happy  fortune  of  the 
American  people,  that  to  the  manifest  advantages  of  freedom 
from  jealousies  of  any  rivals ;  and  from  commitment,  by  any 
record,  to  schemes  or  theories  or  sects  or  cabals,  pursued  by  no 
hatreds,  beguiled  by  no  attachments,  Mr.  Lincoln  added  a  vigor 
ous,  penetrating,  and  capacious  intellect,  and  a  noble,  generous 
nature  which  filled  his  conduct  of  the  Government,  in  small 
things  and  great,  from  beginning  to  end,  "  with  malice  to  none 
and  charity  to  all."  These  qualities  were  indispensable  to  the 
safety  of  the  Government  and  to  the  prosperous  issue  of  our 
civil  war.  In  the  great  crisis  of  a  nation  struggling  with  rebel 
lion,  the  presence  or  absence  of  these  personal  traits  in  a  ruler 
may  make  the  turning-point  in  the  balance  of  its  fate.  Had 
Lincoln,  in  dealing  with  the  administration  of  government  dur 
ing  the  late  rebellion,  insisted  as  George  III.  did,  in  his  treat 
ment  of  the  American  Revolution,  upon  "  the  right  of  employing 
as  responsible  advisers  those  only  whom  he  personally  liked,  and 
who  were  ready  to  consult  and  execute  his  personal  wishes," 
had  he  excluded  from  his  counsels  great  statesmen  like  Seward 
and  Chase,  as  King  George  did  Fox  and  Burke,  who  can  meas 
ure  the  dishonor,  disorder,  and  disaster  into  which  our  affairs 
might  have  fallen  ?  Such  narrow  intelligence  and  perversity  are 
as  little  consistent  with  the  true  working  of  administration  un 
der  our  Constitution  as  they  were  under  the  British  Constitution, 
and  as  little  consonant  with  the  sound  sense  as  they  are  with 
the  generous  spirit  of  our  people. 

By  the  arrangement  of  his  Cabinet,  and  his  principal  appoint 
ments  for  critical  services,  Mr.  Lincoln  showed  at  once  that  na 
ture  had  fitted  him  for  a  ruler,  and  accident  only  had  hid  his  ear 
lier  life  in  obscurity.  I  cannot  hesitate  to  think  that  the  pres 
ence  of  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Chase  in  the  great  offices  of  State 


648  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE. 

and  Treasury,  and  their  faithful  concurrence  in  the  public  service 
and  the  public  repute  of  the  President's  conduct  of  the  Govern 
ment,  gave  to  the  people  all  the  benefits  which  might  have  justly 
been  expected  from  the  election  of  either  to  be  himself  the  head 
of  the  Government  and  much  else  besides.  I  know  of  no  war 
rant  in  the  qualities  of  human  nature,  to  have  hoped  that  either 
of  these  great  political  leaders  would  have  made  as  good  a 
minister  under  the,  administration  of  the  other,  as  President,  as 
both  of  them  did  under  the  administration  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  I 
see  nothing  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  great  qualities  and  great  authority 
with  this  people,  w^hich  could  have  commensurately  served  our 
need  in  any  place,  in  the  conduct  of  affairs,  except  at  their  head. 

The  general  importance,  under  a  form  of  government  where 
the  confidence  of  the  people  is  the  breath  of  the  life  of  execu 
tive  authority,  of  filling  the  great  offices  of  state  with  men  who, 
besides  possessing  the  requisite  special  faculties  for  their  several 
departments  and  large  general  powers  of  mind  for  politics  and 
policies,  have  also  great  repute  with  the  party,  and  great  credit 
with  the  country,  was  well  understood  by  the  President.  He 
knew  that  the  times  needed,  in  the  high  places  of  government, 
men  "  who,"  in  Bolingbroke's  phrase,  "  had  built  about  them 
the  opinion  of  mankind  which,  fame  after  death,  is  superior 
strength  and  power  in  life." 

Of  the  great  abilities  which  Mr.  Chase,  in  his  administration 
of  the  Treasury,  exhibited  through  the  three  arduous  years  of 
that  public  service,  no  question  has  ever  been  made.  The  ex 
actions  of  the  place  knew  no  limits.  A  people,  wholly  unaccus 
tomed  to  the  pressure  of  taxation,  and  with  an  absolute  horror 
of  a  national  debt,  was  to  be  rapidly  subjected  to  the  first  with 
out  stint,  and  to  be  buried  under  a  mountain  of  the  last.  Taxes 
which  should  support  military  operations  on  the  largest  scale, 
and  yet  not  break  the  back  of  industry  which  alone  could  pay 
them  ;  loans,  in  every  form  that  financial  skill  could  devise,  and 
to  the  farthest  verge  of  the  public  credit ;  and,  finally,  the  ex 
treme  resort  of  governments  under  the  last  stress  and  necessity, 
of  the  subversion  of  the  legal  tender,  by  the  substitution  of  what 
has  been  aptly  and  accurately  called  the  "  coined  credit "  of  the 
Government  for  its  coined  money — all  these  exigencies  and  all 
these  expedients  made  up  the  daily  problems  of  the  Secretary's 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS'S  EULOGY  ON  MR.  CHASE.  649 

life.  "We  may  have  some  conception  of  the  magnitude  of  these 
financial  operations,  by  considering  one  of  the  subordinate  con 
trivances  required  to  give  to  the  currency  of  the  country  the 
enormous  volume  and  the  ready  circulation  without  which  the 
tides  of  revenue  and  expenditure  could  not  have  maintained 
their  flow.  I  refer  to  the  transfer  of  the  paper  money  of  the 
country  from  the  State  to  the  national  banks.  This  transac 
tion,  financially  and  politically,  transcends  in  magnitude  and 
difficulty,  of  itself  alone,  any  single  measure  of  administrative 
government  found  in  our  history,  yet  the  conception,  the  plan, 
and  the  execution,  under  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Chase,  took  less 
time  and  raised  less  disturbance  than  it  is  the  custom  of  our 
politics  to  accord  to  a  change  in  our  tariff  or  a  modification  of  a 
commercial  treaty.  Another  special  instance  of  difficult  and 
complicated  administration  was  that  of  the  renewal  of  the  inter 
course  of  trade,  to  follow  closely  the  success  of  our  arms,  and 
subdue  the  interests  of  the  recovered  region  to  the  requirements 
of  the  Government.  But  I  cannot  insist  on  details,  where  all 
was  vast  and  surprising  and  prosperous.  I  hazard  nothing  in 
saying  that  the  management  of  the  finances  of  the  civil  war  was 
the  marvel  of  Europe  and  the  admiration  of  our  own  people. 
For  a  great  part  of  the  wisdom,  the  courage,  and  the  overwhelm 
ing  force  of  will  which  carried  us  through  the  stress  of  this 
stormy  sea,  the  country  stands  under  deep  obligations  to  Mr. 
Chase  as  its  pilot  through  its  fiscal  perils  and  perplexities. 
"Whether  the  genius  of  Hamilton,  dealing  with  great  difficulties 
and  with  small  resources,  transcended  that  of  Chase,  meeting 
the  largest  exigencies  with  great  resources,  is  an  unprofitable 
speculation.  They  stand  together,  in  the  judgment  of  their 
countrymen,  the  great  financiers  of  our  history. 

A  somewhat  persistent  discrepancy  of  feeling  and  opinion 
between  the  President  and  the  Secretary,  in  regard  to  an  im 
portant  office  in  the  public  service,  induced  Mr.  Chase  to  resign 
his  portfolio,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  to  acquiesce  in  his  desire.  !N"o 
doubt,  it  is  not  wholly  fortunate  in  our  Government  that  the 
distribution  of  patronage,  a  mixed  question  of  party  organiza 
tion  and  public  service,  should  so  often  harass  and  embarrass 
administration,  even  in  difficult  and  dangerous  times.  Mr. 
Lincoln's  ludicrous  simile  is  an  incomparable  description  of  the 


650  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

system  as  he  found  it.  He  said,  at  the  outset  of  his  administra 
tion,  that  "  he  was  like  a  man  letting  rooms  at  one  end  of  his 
house,  while  the  other  end  was  on  fire."  Some  criticism  of  the 
Secretary's  resignation  and  of  the  occasion  of  it,  at  the  time, 
sought  to  impute  to  them  consequences  of  personal  acerbity  be 
tween  these  eminent  men,  and  the  mischiefs  of  competing  am 
bitions  and  discordant  counsels  for  the  public  interests.  But 
the  appointment  of  Mr.  Chase  to  the  chief-justiceship  of  the 
United  States  silenced  all  this  evil  speech  and  evil  surmise. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Chase  greatly  desired  this  office, 
its  dignity  and  durability  both  considered,  the  greatest  gratifica 
tion,  to  personal  desires,  and  the  worthiest  in  public  service,  and 
in  public  esteem,  that  our  political  establishment  affords.  For 
tunate,  indeed,  is  he  who,  in  the  estimate  of  the  profession  of 
the  law,  and  in  the  general  judgment  of  his  countrymen,  com 
bines  the  great  natural  powers,  the  disciplined  faculties,  the 
large  learning,  the  larger  wisdom,  the  firm  temper,  the  amiable 
serenity,  the  stainless  purity,  the  sagacious  statesmanship,  the 
penetrating  insight,  which  make  lip  the  qualities  that  should 
preside  at  this  high  altar  of  justice,  and  dispense  to  this  great 
people  the  final  decrees  of  a  government  "  not  of  men,  but  of 
laws."  To  whatever  President  it  comes,  as  a  function  of  his 
supreme  authority,  to  assign  this  great  duty  to  the  worthiest, 
there  is  given  an  opportunity  of  immeasurable  honor  for  his  own 
name,  and  of  vast  benefits  to  his  countrymen,  outlasting  his  own 
brief  authority,  and  perpetuating  its  remembrance  in  the  per 
manent  records  of  justice,  "the  mam  interest  of  all  human 
society,"  so  long  as  it  holds  sway  among  men.  John  Adams, 
from  the  Declaration  of  Independence  down,  and  with  the 
singular  felicity  of  his  line  of  personal  descendants,  has  many 
titles  to  renown,  but  by  no  act  of  his  life  has  he  done  more  to 
maintain  the  constituted  liberties  which  he  joined  in  declaring, 
or  to  confirm  his  own  fame,  than  by  giving  to  the  United  States 
the  great  Chief-Justice  Marshall,  to  be  to  us,  forever,  through 
every  storm  that  shall  beset  our  ship  of  state — 

"  Like  a  great  sea-mark,  standing  every  flaw, 
And  saving  them  that  eye  it." 

In  this  disposition,  Mr.  Lincoln  appointed  Mr.  Chase  to  the 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS'S  EULOGY  ON  MR.  CHASE.  C51 

vacant  seat,  and  the  general  voice  recognized  the  great  fitness 
of  the  selection. 

I  may  be  permitted  to  borrow  from  the  well-considered  and 
sober  words  of  an  eminent  judge,  the  senior  Associate  on  the 
bench  of  the  Supreme  Court — words  that  will  cany  weight 
with  the  country  which  mine  could  not — a  judicial  estimate  of 
this  selection.  Mr.  Justice  Clifford  says:  "Appointed,  as  it 
were,  by  common  consent,  he  seated  himself  easily  and  naturally 
in  the  chair  of  justice,  and  gracefully  answered  every  demand 
upon  the  station,  whether  it  had  respect  to  the  dignity  of  the 
office,  or  to  the  elevation  of  the  individual  character  of  the  in 
cumbent,  or  to  his  firmness,  purity,  or  vigor  of  mind.  From 
the  first  moment  he  drew  the  judicial  robes  around  him  he 
viewed  all  questions  submitted  to  him  as  a  judge  in  the  calm 
atmosphere  of  the  bench,  and  with  the  deliberate  consideration 
of  one  who  feels  that  he  is  determining  issues  for  the  remote 
and  unknown  future  of  a  great  people." 

Magistraius  ostendit  virum — the  magistracy  shows  out  the 
man.  A  great  office,  by  its  great  requirements  and  great  oppor 
tunities,  calls  out  and  displays  the  great  powers  and  rare  quali 
ties  which,  presumably,  have  raised  the  man  to  the  place.  Let 
us  consider  this  last  public  service  and  last  great  station,  as  they 
exhibit  Mr.  Chase  to  a  candid  estimate. 

And,  first,  I  notice  the  conspicuous  fitness  for  judicial  service 
of  the  mental  and  moral  constitution  of  the  man.  All  through 
the  heady  contests  of  the  vehement  politics  of  his  times,  his 
share  in  them  had  embodied  decision,  moderation,  serenity,  and 
inflexible  submission  to  reason  as  the  master  and  ruler  of  all 
controversies.  Force,  fraud,  cunning,  and  all  lubric  arts  and 
artifices,  even  the  beguilements  of  rhetoric,  found  no  favor  with 
him,  as  modes  of  warfare  or  means  of  victory.  So  far,  then, 
from  needing  to  lay  down  any  weapons,  or  disuse  any  methods 
in  which  he  was  practised,  or  learn  or  assume  new  habits  of 
mind  or  strange  modes  of  reasoning,  Mr.  Chase,  in  the  working 
of  his  intellect  and  the  frame  of  his  spirit,  was  always  judicial. 

It  was  not  less  fortunate  for  the  prompt  authority  of  his 
new  station,  so  dependent  upon  the  opinion  of  the  country,  that 
his  credit  for  great  abilities  and  capacity  for  large  responsi 
bilities  was  already  established.  Great  repute,  as  well  as  essen- 


652  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

tial  character,  is  justly  demanded  for  all  elevated  public  stations, 
and  especially  for  judicial  office,  whose  prosperous  service,  in 
capital  junctures,  turns  mainly  on  moral  power  with  the  com 
munity  at  large. 

Both  these  preparations  easily  furnished  the  Chief -Justice 
with  the  requisite  aptitude  for  the  three  relations,  of  prime  im 
portance,  upon  which  his  adequacy  must  finally  be  tested ;  I 
mean,  his  relation  to  the  court  as  its  presiding  head,  his  relation 
to  the  profession  as  masters  of  the  reason  and  debate  over  which 
the  court  is  the  arbiter,  and  his  relation  to  the  people  and  the 
State  in  the  exercise  of  the  critical  constitutional  duties  of  the 
court,  as  a  coordinate  department  of  the  Government. 

In  a  numerous  court,  that  the  Chief- Justice  should  have  a 
prevalent  and  gracious  authority,  as  first  among  equals,  to  adjust, 
arrange,  and  facilitate  the  cooperative  working  of  its  members, 
will  not  be  doubted.  For  more  than  sixty  years,  at  least,  this 
court  had  felt  this  authority— -potens  et  lenis  dominatio — in  the 
presence  of  the  two  celebrated  Chief -Justices  who  filled  out  this 
long  service.  Their  great  experience  and  great  age  had  sup 
ported,  and  general  conformity  of  political  feeling,  if  not  opin 
ion,  on  the  bench,  had  assisted,  this  relation  of  the  Chief -Justice 
to  the  court. 

When  Mr.  Chase  was  called  to  this  station,  he  found  the 
bench  filled  with  men  of  mark  and  credit,  and  his  accession  made 
an  exactly  equal  division  of  the  court  between  the  creations  of 
the  old  and  of  the  new  politics.  In  these  circumstances  the  prop 
er  maintenance  of  the  traditional  relation  of  the  Chief -Justice 
to  the  court  was  of  much  importance  to  its  unbroken  authority 
with  the  public.  That  it  was  so  maintained  was  apparent  to  ob 
servation,  and  Mr.  Justice  Clifford,  speaking  for  the  court,  has 
shown  it  in  a  most  amiable  light : 

"  Throughout  his  judicial  career  he  always  maintained  that 
dignity  of  carriage  and  that  calm,  noble,  and  unostentatious  pres 
ence  that  uniformly  characterized  his  manners  and  deportment 
in  the  social  circle ;  and,  in  his  intercourse  with  his  brethren,  his 
suggestions  were  always  couched  in  friendly  terms,  and  were 
never  marred  by  severity  or  harshness." 

As  for  the  judgment  of  the  bar  of  the  country,  while  it  gave 
its  full  assent  to  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Chase,  as  an  elevated 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS'S  EULOGY  ON  MR.  CHASE.  653 

and  wise  selection  by  the  President,  upon  the  general  and  public 
grounds  which  should  always  control,  there  was  some  hesitancy, 
on  the  part  of  the  lawyers,  as  to  the  completeness  of  Mr.  Chase's 
professional  training,  and  the  special  aptitude  of  his  intellect  to 
thread  the  tangled  mazes  of  affairs  which  form  the  body  of  pri 
vate  litigations.  The  doubt  was  neither  unkind  nor  unnatural, 
and  it  was  readily  and  gladly  resolved  under  the  patient  and 
laborious  application,  and  the  accurate  and  discriminating  in 
vestigation,  with  which  the  Chief -Justice  handled  the  diversified 
subjects,  and  the  manifold  complexities,  which  were  brought  into 
judgment  before  him.  In  fact,  the  original  dubitation  had  over 
looked  the  earlier  distinction  of  Mr.  Chase  at  the  bar  in  some 
most  important  forensic  efforts,  and  had  erred  in  comparing,  for 
their  estimate,  Mr.  Chase  entering  upon  judicial  employments, 
with  his  celebrated  predecessors,  as  they  showed  themselves  at 
the  close,  not  at  the  outset,  of  their  long  judicial  service.  I  feel 
no  fear  of  dissent  from  the  profession  in  saying  that  those  who 
practised  in  the  Circuit  or  in  the  Supreme  Court  while  he  pre 
sided,  as  well  as  the  larger  and  widely-diffused  body  of  lawyers 
who  give  competent  and  responsible  study  to  the  reports,  recog 
nize  the  force  of  his  reason,  the  clearness  of  his  perceptions,  the 
candor  of  his  opinions,  and  the  lucid  rhetoric  of  his  judgments, 
as  assuring  his  rank  with  the  eminent  judges  of  our  own  and  the 
mother-country. 

But,  in  the  most  imposing  part  of  the  jurisdiction  and  juris 
prudence  of  the  court ;  in  its  dominion  over  all  that  belongs  to 
the  law  of  nations,  whether  occupied  with  the  weighty  questions 
of  peace  and  war,  and  the  multitudinous  disturbances  of  public 
and  private  law  which  follow  the  change  from  one  to  the  other ; 
or  with  the  complications  of  foreign  intercourse  and  commerce 
with  all  the  world,  which  the  genius  of  our  people  is  constantly 
expanding ;  in  its  control,  also,  of  the  lesser  public  law  of  our 
political  system,  by  which  we  are  a  nation  of  republics,  where 
the  bounds  of  State  and  Federal  authority  need  constant  explo 
ration,  and  require  accurate  and  circumspect  adjustment ;  in  its 
final  arbitrament  on  all  conflicts  and  encroachments  by  which  the 
great  coordinate  departments  of  the  Government  are  to  be  con 
fined  to  their  appropriate  spheres ;  in  that  delicate  and  superb 
supremacy  of  judicial  reason  whereby  the  Constitution  confides 


654  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

to  the  deliberations  of  this  court  the  determination,  even,  of  the 
legality  of  legislation,  and  trusts  it,  nevertheless,  to  abstain  it 
self  from  law-making — in  all  these  transcendent  functions  of  the 
tribunal  the  preparation  and  the  adequacy  of  the  Chief-Justice 
were  unquestioned. 

Accordingly,  we  find  in  the  few  years  of  his  service,  before 
his  decline  in  health,  in  the  crowd  of  causes  bred  by  the  civil 
war,  which  pressed  the  court  with  novel  embarrassments,  and 
loaded  it  with  unprecedented  labors,  that  the  Chief- Justice  gave 
conspicuous  evidence,  in  repeated  instances,  of  that  union  of  the 
faculties  of  a  lawyer  and  a  statesman,  which  alone  can  satisfy 
the  exactions  of  this  highest  jurisdiction,  unequaled  and  unex 
ampled  in  any  judicature  in  the  world.  To  name  these  conspic 
uous  causes  merely,  without  unfolding  them,  would  carry  no 
impression ;  and  time  fails  for  any  demonstrative  criticism  upon 
them. 

There  are  two  passages  in  the  judicial  service  of  Mr.  Chase 
which,  attracting  great  attention  and  exciting  some  difference  of 
opinion  at  the  time  of  the  transactions,  invite  a  brief  considera 
tion  at  your  hands. 

The  first  political  impeachment  in  our  constitutional  history, 
involving,  as  it  did,  the  accusation  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  required  the  Chief-Justice  to  preside  at  the  trial 
before  the  Senate,  creating  thus  the  tribunal  to  which  the  Con 
stitution  had  assigned  this  high  jurisdiction.  Beyond  the  in 
junction  that  the  Senate,  when  sitting  for  the  trial  of  impeach 
ments,  should  be  "  on  oath,"  the  Constitution  gave  no  instruction 
to  fix  or  ascertain  the  character  of  the  procedure,  the  nature  of 
the  duty  assigned  to  the  specially-organized  court,  or  the  distri 
bution  of  authority  between  the  Chief -Justice  and  the  Senate. 
The  situation  lacked  no  feature  of  gravity — no  circumstance  of 
solicitude — and  the  attention  of  the  whole  country,  and  of 
foreign  nations,  watched  the  transaction  at  every  stage  of  its 
progress.  No  circumstances  could  present  a  greater  disparity  of 
political  or  popular  forces  between  accuser  and  accused,  and  none 
could  be  imagined  of  more  thorough  commitment  of  the  body  of 
the  court — the  Senate — both  in  the  interests  of  its  members,  in 
their  political  feeling,  and  their  pre-judgments ;  all  tending  to 
make  the  condemnation  of  the  President,  upon  all  superficial 


WILLIAM  M  EVARTS'S  EULOGY  ON  MR.  CHASE.  655 

calculations,  inevitable.  The  effort  of  the  Constitution  to  guard 
against  mere  partisan  judgment,  by  requiring  a  two-third  vote 
to  convict,  was  paralyzed  by  the  complexion  of  the  Senate,  show 
ing  more  than  four-fifths  of  that  body  of  the  party  which  had 
instituted  the  impeachment  and  was  demanding  conviction.  To 
this  party,  as  well,  the  Chief-Justice  belonged,  as  a  founder,  a 
leader,  a  recipient  of  its  honors,  and  a  lover  of  its  prosperity  and 
its  fame.  The  President,  raised  to  the  office  from  that  of  Vice- 
President — to  which  alone  he  had  been  elected — by  the  deplored 
event  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  assassination,  was  absolutely  without  a 
party,  in  the  Senate  or  in  the  country ;  for  the  party  whose  suf 
frages  he  had  received  for  the  vice-presidency  was  the  hostile 
force  in  his  impeachment.  And,  to  bring  the  matter  to  the 
worst,  the  succession  to  all  the  executive  power  and  patronage 
of  the  Government,  in  case  of  conviction,  was  to  fall  into  the  ad 
ministration  of  the  President  of  the  Senate — the  creature,  thus, 
of  the  very  court  invested  with  the  duty  of  trial  and  the  power 
of  conviction. 

Against  all  these  immense  influences,  confirmed  and  inflamed 
by  a  storm  of  party  violence,  beating  against  the  Senate-house 
without  abatement  through  the  trial,  the  President  was  ac 
quitted.  To  what  wise  or  fortunate  protection  of  the  stability 
of  government  does  the  people  of  this  country  owe  its  escape 
from  this  great  peril  ?  Solely,  I  cannot  hesitate  to  think,  to  the 
potency — with  a  justice-loving,  law-respecting  people — of  the 
few  decisive  words  of  the  Constitution  which,  to  the  common 
apprehension,  had  impressed  upon  the  transaction  the  solemn 
character  of  trial  and  conviction,  under  the  sanction  of  the  oath 
to  bind  the  conscience,  and  not  of  the  mere  exercise  of  power,  of 
which  its  will  should  be  its  reason.  In  short,  the  Constitution 
had  made  the  procedure  judicial,  and  not  political.  It  was  this 
sacred  interposition  that  stayed  this  plague  of  political  resent 
ments  which,  with  their  less  sober  and  intelligent  populations, 
have  thwarted  so  many  struggles  for  free  government  and  equal 
institutions. 

Over  this  scene,  through  all  its  long  agitations,  the  Chief- 
Justice  presided,  with  firmness  and  prudence,  with  circumspect 
comprehension,  and  sagacious  forecast  of  the  vast  consequences 
which  hung,  not  upon  the  result  of  the  trial  as  affecting  any  per- 


656  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

sonal  fortunes  of  the  President,  but  upon  the  maintenance  of 
its  character  as  a  trial — upon  the  prevalence  of  law,  and  the  su 
premacy  of  justice,  in  its  methods  of  procedure,  in  the  grounds 
and  reasons  of  its  conclusion.  That  his  authority  was  greatly 
influential  in  fixing  the  true  constitutional  relations  of  the  Chief- 
Justice  to  the  Senate,  and  establishing  a  precedent  of  procedure 
not  easily  to  be  subverted ;  that  it  was  felt,  throughout  the  trial, 
with  persuasive  force,  in  the  maintenance  of  the  judicial  nature 
of  the  transaction ;  and  that  it  never  went  a  step  beyond  the 
office  which  belonged  to  him — of  presiding  over  the  Senate  try 
ing  an  impeachment — is  not  to  be  doubted. 

The  President  was  acquitted.  The  disappointment  of  the 
political  calculations  which  had  been  made  upon,  what  was  felt 
by  the  partisans  of  impeachment  to  be,  an  assured  result,  was 
unbounded ;  and  resentments,  rash  and  unreasoning,  were  vis 
ited  upon  the  Chief-Justice,  who  had  influenced  the  Senate  to 
be  judicial,  and  had  not  himself  been  political.  No  doubt,  this 
impeachment  trial  permanently  affected  the  disposition  of  the 
leading  managers  of  the  Kepublican  party  toward  the  Chief- 
Justice,  and  his  attitude  thereafter  toward  that  party,  in  his  char 
acter  of  a  citizen.  But  the  people  of  the  country  never  assumed 
any  share  of  the  resentment  of  party  feeling.  The  charge  against 
him,  if  it  had  any  shape  or  substance,  came  only  to  this :  that 
the  Chief-Justice  brought  into  the  Senate,  under  his  judicial 
robes,  no  concealed  weapons  of  party  warfare,  and  that  he  had 
not  plucked  from  the  Bible,  on  which  he  took  and  administered 
the  judicial  oath,  the  commandment  for  its  observance. 

Not  long  after  Mr.  Chase's  accession  to  the  bench  there 
came  before  the  court  a  question,  in  substance  and  in  form,  .as 
grave  and  difficult  as  any  that  its  transcendent  jurisdiction  over 
the  validity  of  the  legislation  of  Congress,  has  ever  presented, 
or,  in  any  forecast  we  can  make  of  the  future,  will  ever  present 
for  its  judgment ;  I  mean  the  constitutionality  of  that  feature 
and  quality  of  the  issues  of  United  States  notes  during  the  war, 
which  made  them  a  legal  tender  for  the  satisfaction  of  private 
debts.  This  measure  was  one  of  the  great  administrative  ex 
pedients  for  marshaling  the  wealth  of  the  country,  as  rapidly, 
as  equally,  and  as  healthfully,  to  the  energies  of  production  and 
industry,  as  might  be,  and  so  as  seasonably  to  meet  the  immeas- 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS'S  EULOGY  ON  MR.  CHASE.  C57 

iirable  demands  of  the  public  service,  in  the  stress  of  the  war. 
That  it  was  debated  and  adopted,  with  full  cognizance  of  its 
critical  character,  and  with  extreme  solicitude  that  all  its  bear 
ings  should  be  thoroughly  explored,  and  upon  the  same  per 
emptory  considerations,  upon  which  the  master  of  a  ship  cuts 
away  a  mast  or  jettisons  cargo,  or  the  surgeon  amputates  a  limb, 
was  a  matter  of  history.  Mr.  Chase,  as  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury,  with  a  reluctance  and  repugnance  which  enhanced  the 
weight  of  his  counsels,  approved  the  measure,  as  one  of  neces 
sity  for  the  fiscal  operations  of  the  Government,  which  knew  no 
other  seasonable  or  adequate  recourse.  Upon  this  imposing  and 
authoritative  advice  of  the  financial  minister,  the  legal-tender 
trait  of  the  paper  issues  of  the  Government  was  adopted  by 
Congress,  and  without  his  sanction,  presumptively,  it  would  have 
been  denied. 

And  now,  when,  after  repeated  argument  at  the  bar,  and 
long  deliberations  of  the  court,  the  decision  was  announced,  the 
determining  opinion  of  the  Chief -Justice,  in  an  equal  division 
of  the  six  associate  justices,  pronounced  the  legal-tender  acts  un 
constitutional,  as  not  within  the  discretion  of  the  political  de 
partments  of  the  Government,  Congress,  and  the  Executive,  to 
determine  tin's  very  question  of  the  necessity  of  the  juncture,  as 
justifying  their  enactment. 

The  singularity  of  the  situation  struck  everybody,  and  greatly 
divided  public  sentiment  between  applause  and  reproaches  of 
the  Chief-Justice,  as  the  principal  figure  both  in  the  adminis 
trative  measure  and  in  its  judicial  condemnation.  But  soon,  a 
new  phase  of  the  unsettled  agitation  on  the  merits  of  the  consti 
tutional  question,  drew  public  attention,  and  created  even  greater 
excitement  of  feeling  and  diversity  of  sentiment.  The  court, 
which  had  been  reduced  by  Congress  under  particular  and  tem 
porary  motives,  hostile  to  the  appointing  power  of  President 
Johnson,  had  been  again  opened  by  Congress  to  its  permanent 
number,  and  its  vacancies  had  been  filled.  A  new  case,  involv 
ing  the  vexed  question,  was  heard  by  the  court,  and  the  validity 
of  the  disputed  laws  was  sustained  by  its  judgment.  The  signal 
spectacle  of  the  court,  which  had  judged  over  Congress  and  the 
Secretary,  now  judging  over  itself,  gave  rise  to  much  satire  on 
one  side  and  the  other,  and  to  some  coarseness  of  contumely  as 


658  L!FE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

to  the  motives  and  the  means  of  these  eventful  mutations  in 
matters,  where  stability  and  uniformity  are,  confessedly,  of  the 
highest  value  to  the  public  interests,  and  to  the  dignity  of  gov 
ernment. 

Confessing  to  a  firm  approval  of  the  final  disposition  of  the 
constitutional  question  by  the  court,  I  concede  it  to  be  a  sub 
ject  of  thorough  regret  that  the  just  result  was  not  reached  by 
less  uncertain  steps.  But,  with  this  my  adverse  attitude  to  the 
Chief -Justice's  judicial  position  on  the  question,  I  find  no  diffi 
culty  in  discarding  all  suggestions  which  would  mix  up  political 
calculations  with  his  judicial  action.  The  error  of  the  Chief -Jus 
tice,  if,  under  the  last  judgment  of  the  court,  we  may  venture  so 
to  consider  it,  was  in  following  his  strong  sense  of  the  supreme 
importance  of  restoring  the  integrity  of  the  currency,  and  his 
impatience  and  despair  at  the  feebleness  of  the  political  depart 
ments  of  the  Government  in  that  direction,  to  the  point  of  con 
cluding  that  the  final  wisdom  of  this  great  question — inter 
apices  juris,  as  well  as  of  the  highest  reasons  of  state — was  to 
deny  to  the  brief  exigency  of  war,  what  was  so  dangerous  to  the 
permanent  necessities  of  peace.  But  a  larger  reason  and  a  wider 
prudence,  .as  it  would  seem,  favor  the  prevailing  judgment, 
which  refused  to  cripple  the  permanent  faculties  of  government 
for  the  unforeseen  duties  of  the  future,  and  drew  back  the  court 
from  the  perilous  edge  of  law-making,  which,  overpassed,  must 
react  to  cripple,  in  turn,  the  essential  judicial  power.  The  past, 
thus,  was  not  discredited,  nor  the  future  disabled. 

I  have  now  carried  your  attention  to  the  round  of  public 
service  which  filled  the  life  of  Mr.  Chase  with  activity  and  use 
fulness,  and  yet  the  survey  and  the  lesson  are  incomplete  with 
out  some  reference  to  a  station  he  never  attained,  to  an  office 
he  never  administered ;  I  mean,  to  be  sure,  the  presidency.  It 
is  of  the  nature  of  this  great  place  of  power  and  trust,  and  the 
necessity  of  the  method  by  which  alone  it  can  be  reached,  to 
present  to  the  ambition  and  public  spirit  of  political  leaders, 
and  to  the  honest  hopes  and  enthusiasm  of  the  great  body  of 
the  people,  an  equally  frequent  disappointment.  This  is  not 
the  place  to  insist  upon  the  reasons  of  this  unquestionable  mis 
chief,,  nor  to  attempt  to  point  out  the  escape  from  them,  if  in 
deed  the  problem  be  not,  in  itself,  too  hard  for  solution.  To 


WILLIAM  M.  EYARTS'S  EULOGY  ON  MR.  CHASE.  659 

Mr,  Chase,  as  to  all  the  great  leaders  of  opinion  in  the  present 
and  perhaps  the  last  generation  of  our  public  men,  this  disap-, 
pointment  came,  and  in  his  case,  as  in  theirs,  brought  with  it 
the  defeat  of  the  hopes  and  desires  of  a  large  following  of  his 
countrymen,  who  sought,  through  his  accession  to  the  presidency, 
the  elevation  of  the  Government,  and  the  welfare  of  the  people. 

That  the  range  and  dignity  of  Mr.  Chase's  public  employ 
ments  and  the  large  capacity,  absolute  probity,  and  unbounded 
energy  which  he  had  shown  in  them,  justified  his  aspiration  to 
the  presidency,  and  the  public  calculations  of  great  benefit  from 
his  accession  to  it,  may  not  be  doubted.  In  this  state  of  things 
it  is  obvious,  that  he  would  necessarily  be  greatly  in  the  minds 
of  men,  as  a  candidate  for  the  candidacy,  and  this,  too,  whether 
they  favored  or  opposed  it,  without  any  implication  of  undue 
activity  of  desire,  much  less  of  effort,  on  his  part,  to  obtain  the 
nomination.  But,  it  was  not  in  the  fortunes  of  Mr.  Chase's 
life  to  take  the  flood  of  any  tide,  in  the  restless  sea  of  our  poli 
tics,  which  led  on  to  the  presidency.  In  4860  there  was  no 
principle  and  no  policy  of  the  Republican  party  which  could 
tolerate  the  postponement  of  Mr.  Seward  to .  Mr.  Chase,  if  a 
political  leader  was  to  be  put  in  nomination.  In  1864  the  para 
mount  considerations  of  absolute  supremacy,  which  dictated  the 
reelection  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  would  endure  no  competition  of  can 
didates  in  the  Republican  party.  In  1868,  when  each  party 
seemed,  in  an  unusual  degree,  free  to  seek  and  find  its  candi 
dates  where  it  would,  Mr.  Chase  was  Chief -Justice,  and  no  issue 
of  the  public  safety  existed,  which  alone,  in  the  settled  convic 
tions  of  this  people,  would  favor  a  political  canvass  by  the  head 
of  the  judiciary. 

In  a  just  view  of  the  office  of  President,  as  framed  in  the 
Constitution,  which  he  only,  in  the  whole  establishment  of  the 
Government,  is  sworn  "  to  preserve,  protect,  and  defend,"  and 
of  the  rightful  demands  of  this  people  from  its  supreme  ma 
gistracy,  I  am  sure  most  people  will  agree  that  Mr.  Chase  pos 
sessed  great  qualities  for  the  discharge  of  its  high  duties,  and 
for  the  maintenance  of  good  government  in  difficult  times. 
These  qualifications  I  have  already  unfolded  from  his'  life. 
If,  indeed,  the  great  hold  over  the  Government,  which  the 
Constitution  secures  to  the  people  by  the  election  of  the  Presi- 


660  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

dent,  and  Ms  direct  and  constant  responsibility  to  popular  opin- 
^ion,  and  the  full  pov,  ers,  thus  safely  confided  to  him,  in  the 
name  and  as  the  trust  of  the  people  at  large — if  this  hold  is  to 
be  exercised  and  preserved  in  its  appropriate  vigor,  it  can  only 
be  by  the  election  to  the  presidency  of  true  leaders  of  the  politi 
cal  opinion  of  the  country.  In  this  way  alone  can  power  and 
responsibility  be  kept  in  union  ;  and  any  nation  which,  in  the 
working  of  its  government,  sees  them  divorced — sees  power 
without  responsibility,  and  responsibility  without  power — must 
expect  dishonor  and  disaster  in  its  affairs. 

I  have,  thus,  with  such  success  as  may  be,  undertaken  to 
separate  the  thread  of  this  individual  character  and  action  from 
that  woven  tapestry  of  human  life,  whose  conciliated  colors  and 
collective  force  make  up  one  of  the  noblest  chapters  of  history. 
I  have  attempted  to  present  in  prominent  points,  passing  per 
fastigia  rerum,  the  worth,  the  work,  the  duty,  and  the  honor 
which  fill  out  "  the  sustained  dignity  of  this  stately  life."  From 
his  boyhood  on  the»  banks  of  this  fair  river — famous  as  having 
given  birth  and  nurture  to  three  Chief -Justices  of  the  United 
States,  Ellsworth,  Chase,  and  "Waite ;  through  his  first  lessons 
in  the  humanities  in  beautiful  Windsor,  his  fuller  instruction 
in  the  lap  'of  this  gracious  niother,  his  loved  and  venerated 
Dartmouth ;  through  his  lessons  in  law  and  in  eloquence  at  the 
feet  of  his  great  master,  "Wirt,  his  study  of  statesmen  and  gov 
ernment  at  the  capital ;  through  his  faithful  service  to  the  law, 
that  jealous  mistress,  and  his  generous  advocacy  of  the  rights, 
and  resentment  of  the  wrongs,  of  the  unfriended  and  the  un 
defended  ;  through  his  season  of  stormy  politics  with  its  "  estua- 
tions  of  joys  and  fears ; "  through  the  crush  and  crowd  of  labors 
and  solicitudes  which  beset  him  as  minister  of  finance  in  the 
tensions  and  perils  of  war ;  through  all  this  steep  ascent  to  the 
serene  height  of  supreme  jurisprudence,  this  life,  but  a  span  in 
years,  was  enough  for  the  permanent  service  of  his  country,  and 
for  the  assurance  of  his  fame.  "  Etenim^  Quirites,  exiguwn  no 
tes  vitce  curriculum  natura  circumscripsit,  immensum  glorice" 

If  I  should  attempt  to  compare  Mr.  Chase,  either  in  resem 
blance  or  contrast,  with  the  great  names  in  our  public  life,  of 
our  own  times,  and  in  our  previous  history,  I  should  be  inclined 
to  class  him,  in  the  solidity  of  his  faculties,  the  firmness  of  his 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS'S  EULOGY  ON  MR.  CHASE.  661 

ill,  and  in  the  moderation  of  his  temper,  and  in  the  quality  of 
his  public  services,  with  that  remarkably  school  of  statesmen, 
who,  through  the  Revolutionary  War,  wrought  out  the  indepen-' 
dence  of  their  country,  which  they  had  declared,  and  framed  the 
Constitution,  by  which  the  new  liberties  were  consolidated  and 
their  perpetuity  insured.  Should  I  point  more  distinctly  at 
individual  characters,  whose  traits  he  most  recalls,  Ellsworth  as 
a  lawyer  and  judge,  and  Madison  as  a  statesman,  would  seem 
not  only  the  most  like,  but  very  like,  Mr.  Chase.  In  the  groups 
of  his  cotemporaries  in  public  affairs,  Mr.  Chase  is  always  named 
with  the  most  eminent.  In  every  triumvirate  of  conspicuous 
activity  he  would  be  naturally  associated.  Thus,  in  the  prelimi 
nary  agitations  which  prepared  the  triumphant  politics,  it  is 
Chase  and  Sumner  and  Hale ;  in  the  competition  for  the  presi 
dency  when  the  party  expected  to  carry  it,  it  is  Seward  and 
Lincoln  and  Chase ;  in  administration,  it  is  Stanton  and  Seward 
and  Chase ;  in  the  Senate,  it  is  Chase  and  Seward  and  Sumner. 
All  these  are  newly  dead,  and  we  accord  them  a  common  hom 
age  of  admiration  and  of  gratitude,  not  yet  to  be  adjusted  or 
weighed  out  to  each. 

Just  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  Mr.  Chase  left  these  halls 
of  learning,  the  college  sent  out  another  scholar  of  -her  disci-' 
pline,  with  the  same  general  traits  of  birth,  and  condition,  and 
attendant  influences,  which  we  have  noted  as  the  basis  of  the 
power  and  influence  of  this  later  son  of  Dartmouth.  He  played 
a  famous  part  in  his  time  as  lawyer,  senator,  and  minister  of 
state,  in  all  the  greatest  affairs,  and  in  all  the  highest  spheres  of 
public  action;  and  to  his  eloquence  his  countrymen  paid  the 
singular  homage,  with  which  the  Greeks  crowned  that  of  Peri 
cles,  who  alone  was  called  Olympian  for  his  grandeur  and  his 
power.  He  died  with  the  turning  tide  from  the  old  statesman 
ship  to  the  new,  then  opening,  now  closed,  in  which  Mr.  Chase 
and  his  cotemporaries  have  done  their  work  and  made  their 
fame.  Twenty-one  years  ago  this  venerable  college,  careful  of 
the  memory  of  one  who  had  so  greatly  served  as  well  as  honored 
her,  heard  from  the  lips  of  Choate  the  praise  of  Webster. 
What  lover  of  the  college,  what  admirer  of  genius  and  eloquence, 
can  forget  the  pathetic  and  splendid  tribute  which  the  con 
summate  orator  paid  to  the  mighty  fame  of  the  great  statesman  ? 


662  LIFE  OF  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE. 

What  mattered  it  to  him,  or  to  the  college,  that,  for  the  moment, 
this  fame  was  checked  and  clouded,  in  the  divided  judgments 
of  his  countrymen,  by  the  rising  storms  of  the  approaching 
struggle  ?  But,  instructed  by  the  experience  of  the  vanquished 
rebellion,  none  are  now  so  dull  as  not  to  see  'that  the  consoli 
dation  of  the  Union,  the  demonstration  of  the  true  doctrine  of 
the  Constitution,  the  solicitous  observance  of  every  obligation 
of  the  compact,  were  the  great  preparations  for  the  final  issue 
of  American  politics  between  freedom  and  slavery. 

To  these  preparations  the  life-work  of  "Webster  and  his  as 
sociates  was  devoted;  their  completeness  and  adequacy  have 
been  demonstrated ;  the  force  and  magnitude  of  the  explosion 
have  justified  all  their  solicitudes  lest  it  should  burst  the  cohe 
sions  of  our  unity.  The  general  sense  of  our  countrymen  now 
understands  that  the  statesmen  who  did  the  most  to  secure  the 
common  government  for  slavery  and  freedom  under  the  frame 
of  the  Constitution,  and  who  in  the  next  generations  did  the 
most  to  strengthen  the  bonds  of  the  Union,  and  to  avert  the  last 
test  till  that  strength  was  assured ;  and,  in  our  own  latest  times, 
did  the  most  to  make  the  contest  at  last  become  seasonable 
and  safe,  thorough  and  unyielding  and  unconditional,  have  all 
wrought  out  the  great  problem  of  our  statesmanship,  which  was 
to  assure  to  us,  "  Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  forever,  one  and 
inseparable."  They  all  deserve,  as  they  shall  all  receive,  each 
for  his  share,  the  gratitude  of  their  countrymen,  and  the  applause 
of  the  world. 

To  the  advancing  generations  of  youth  that  Dartmouth  shall 
continue  to  train  for  the  service  of  the  republic,  and  the  good 
of  mankind,  the  lesson  of  the  life  we  commemorate,  to-day,  is 
neither  obscure  nor  uncertain.  The  toils  and  honors  of  the  past 
generations  have  not  exhausted  the  occasions  nor  the  duties  of 
our  public  life,  and  the  preparation  for  them,  whatever  else  it 
may  include,  can  never  omit  the  essential  qualities  which  have 
always  marked  every  prosperous  and  elevated  career.  These 
are  energy,  labor,  truth,  courage,  and  faith.  These  make  up 
that  ultimate  WISDOM  to  which  the  moral  constitution  of  the 
world  assures  a  triumph. — "  Wisdom  is  the  principal  thing ;  she 
shall  bring  thee  to  honor ;  she  shall  give  to  thy  head  an  orna 
ment  of  grace ;  a  crown  of  glory  shall  she  deliver  to  thee." 


1 1ST  DEX. 


ABBOTT,  LTMAN,  letter  to,  525. 

Abolitionists,  their  sentiments,  as  ex 
pressed  by  Mr.  Garrison  in  1842,  67. 

Adams,  Greene,  letter  to,  on  Kentucky 
affairs,  428. 

Advertisement  for  School,  at  Washington, 
22. 

Ammen,  Captain  Daniel,  letter  to,  435. 

Anderson,  Larz,  letter  to,  on  war  expen 
ditures,  430. 

Anti-Nebraska  party,  in  Ohio,  165. 

Army,  estimates,  1861,  233;  strength  of, 
December,  1861,  235;  strength  of,  dur 
ing  the  war,  350. 

Ashley,  J.  M.,  letter  to,  519. 

Assistant  Treasurer's  office,  New  York; 
Mr.  Cisco's  resignation,  484. 

"  Attorney-General  for  negroes,"  52. 

Ball,  Flamen,  letter  to,  498. 

Banks,  representatives  of,  confer  with  Mr. 
Chase,  225 ;  loans  of,  to  Government,  in 
1861,  227,  228 ;  urge  Mr.  Chase  to  forego 
issue  of  U.  S.  notes,  230 ;  suspend  specie 
payments,  231 ;  national,  proposed  by 
Mr.  Chase,  240:  condition  of  State,  in 
1861,  282 ;  brief  history  of  State,  285, 
note;  Mr.  Chase  renews  recommenda 
tion  of  national,  ib. ;  Mr.  Hooper  intro 
duces  bill  into  Congress,  292;  further 
arguments  of  Mr.  Chase,  293 ;  national 
system,  sanctioned*  by  Congress,  296 ; 
leading  features  of  the  system,  296,  et 
seq.  /  change  of  public  sentiment,  in  re 
lation  to  national,  301 ;  amendatory  act, 
302 ;  vote  on  amendatory  act,  307 ;  con 
dition  of  national,  in  October,  1865,  309 ; 
idem,  in  1873,  310. 

Bar,  Mr.  Chase's  admission  to,  30. 

Barnburner  Democrats  of  New  York,  their 
withdrawal,  in  1848,  from  National 
Democratic  Convention,  83 ;  their  State 
Convention,  and  nomination  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren,  84. 

Barney,  Hiram,  letter  to,  275 ;  appoint 
ment  of,  as  collector  at  New  York,  477  ; 
"Conservative"  assaults  upon,  478 ;  let 
ter  to,  495  ;  correspondence  between 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Chase  about,  495  ; 
letter  to,  on  "Chase  movement"  in 
1868,  583. 

Beales,  E.  F.,  letter  to,  392. 


Belmont.  August,  letters  to,  277 ;  letter  tot 
on  suffrage,  584. 

Bigelow,  John,  letter  to,  514. 

Birney.  James  G.,  39 :  employs  the  slave 
Matilda,  41 ;  trial  of,  for  harboring  Ma- 
tilda?  43 ;  antislavery  candidate  for 
President,  46. 

"  Birney  mob,"  39. 

Black  laws,  repeal  of,  in  Ohio,  96. 

Bloodgood,  S.  Dewitt,  letters  to,  "  bank 
ing  law  and -tax  bill,"  402. 

Bonds,  $50,000,000  six  per  cent.,  issued  to 
banks  in  1861,  in  exchange  for  coin,  228. 

Bonfils,  Columbus,  Mr.  Chase's  first  pupil, 

Breslin,  John  G.,  letter  to,  101 ;  the  Bres- 
lin  defalcation,  186. 

Brougham,  Lord,  Mr.  Chase's  eulogy  on, 
34. 

Brown,  John,  his  raid  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
191 ;  extract  from  Mr.  Chase's  message, 
192. 

Brown,  Colonel  William,  letter  to,  592. 

Bryant,  Win.  C.,  letters  to,  financial  ob 
jects,  405;  McDowell  and  McClellan, 
450 ;  letter  to,  on  the  Democratic  move 
ment  in  1868,  588. 

Buffalo  Free-Soil  Convention  of  1848,  85  ; 
its  action,  85 ;  its  results,  87. 

Burritt,  Elihu,  letter  to,  views  of  Mr.  Chase 
prior  to  the  war.  380. 

Butler,  Benj.  F.,  of  New  York,  Mr.  Chase's 
letter  to,  in  1852,  130. 

Butler,  General  B.  F.,  letters  to,  on  slavery', 
375,  376. 

Cable,  Joseph,  letter  to,  about  General 
Fremont,  432. 

California,  slavery  exclusion  in,  107. 

Cameron,  Secretary  of  War,  his  embarrass 
ments,  220;  dismissed  from  war-office, 
237 ;  letter  to,  on  war  expenditures,  279. 

Carey,  Henry  C.,  letter  to,  364. 

Carev,  S.  F.,  letter  to,  398. 

Carlile,  John  S.,  letter  to,  on  matters  in 
West  Virginia,  425. 

Carlisle,  George,  letter  to,  431. 

Carrington,  Colonel  H.  B.,  interview  with 
Secretary  Cass,  181 ;  publishes  a  volume 
of  military  regulations,  186. 

Carson,  E.  T.,  letter  to.  451. 

Caucus,  Free-Soil  members  of  Ohio  Legis- 


664 


INDEX. 


lature  in  1848,  92 ;  retiring  of  Morse  and 
Townshend,  92. 

Certificates  of  indebtedness,  270. 

Chase,  Ithamar,  birth  and  marriage,  3 ; 

death,  8. 

"       Dudlev,  3  (see  also  23). 
"       Eev.  Carleton,  letter  to,  389. 
"       Edwin  J.,  letter  to,  32. 
"       Estate,  2,  note. 
"      Miss  Kate,  letters  to,  468,  4C9. 
"       Miss  Janet  R.,  letters  to,  "taking 
of  Norfolk,"   366,  et   seq.    (see 
also  520). 

"      Bishop  Philander,  4, 10, 16,  21. 
"       Statutes  of  Ohio,  34. 

Chase,  Salmon  Portland,  birth  of,  1 ;  goes 
to  Ohio,  10 ;  returns  to  New  Hampshire, 
17 ;  at  Dartmouth  College,  19 ;  at  Wash 
ington,  22 ;  pupil  of  William  Wirt,  26 ; 
admitted  to  the  bar,  30 ;  at  Cincinnati, 
31;  Chase's  "Statutes  of  Ohio,"  34; 
|4  Birney  mob,"  39 ;  Matilda  case,  41 ; 
joins  antislavery  movement,  47:  basis 
of  his  antislavery,  46:  case  or  John 
Van  Zandt,  52 ;  the  Watson  case,  74 ; 
Buffalo  Convention,  85;  elected  U.  S. 
Senator,  93 ;  takes  his  seat  in  that  body, 
105;  compromise  measures  of  1850,  107, 
et  seq.  •  opposes  them,  110,  and  fugitive 
slave  act,  123 ;  appeal  of  Independent 
Democrats,  140 ;  opposes  repeal  of  Mis 
souri  prohibition,  151,  et  seq.;  elected 
Governor  of  Ohio,  169 ;  reelected  U.  S. 
Senator,  194:  Peace  Conference,  mem 
ber  of,  203 ;  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
207 ;  proposes  national  banking  system, 
240 ;  hostility  to  legal-tender  paper,  242, 
et  seq. ;  judicial  opinion  on  legal  tender, 
in  Hepburn  vs.  Griswold,  258 ;  national 
banking  system  sanctioned  by  Congress, 
296 ;  five-twenties,  negotiation  of,  345 ; 
ten-forties,  350;  candidate  for  Presi 
dent,  1864,  476;  resigns  the  Treasury, 
486;  is  appointed  Chief-Justice,  488; 
Jeiferson  Davis' s  trial,  535,  et  seq. ;  pre 
sides  upon  impeachment  of  Andrew 
Johnson,  550,  et  seq.;  the  "  Chase  move 
ment"  in  the  Democratic  party,  560; 
personal  characteristics,  594  ;  the  last 
scene  of  all,  619-625. 

Chief- Justice,  Mr.  Chase  appointed  to  be, 
488 ;  correspondence  concerning,  512  ; 
powers  of,  in  Senate  court  of  impeach 
ment,  551. 

Chittenden,  Sterne,  letter  to,  455. 

Cincinnati  College,  at  school  at,  15. 

Cincinnati,  Mr.  Chase's  arrival  there  in 
1830,  81. 

Cisco,  John  J.,  resigns  office,  484;  letter 
and.  telegram  to,  506 ;  to  Mr.  Chase,  509. 

Clarke,  Peter  H.,  and  Corbin,  J.  C.,  Cin 
cinnati,  letter  to,  suffrage  and  amnesty, 
531. 

Cleveland,  Charles  Dexter,  letters  to,  28, 
30,  33,  95. 

Cochraue,  General  John,  letter  to,  "  Gen 
eral  McClellan,"  457. 

Coin,  insufficient  supply  for  war  purposes, 
230 ;  premium  on,  255 ;  probable  amount 


in  the  country  in  1861,  283;  legislation 
to  prevent  advance  in  price  of,  356 ;  fu 
tility  of,  360,  361 ;  rate  of  premium,  361. 

Colyer,  John,  letter  to,  591. 

Compound  -  interest  -  bearing  notes  out 
standing  on  June  30,  1864,  342. 

Compromise  measures  of  1850,  109 :  Mr. 
Chase's  speech  on,  109,  et  seq. 

Congress,  Mr.  Chase's  description  of,  in 
1828,  27. 

Conkling,  Eoscoe,  against  legal  tender, 

Cooke,  Jay,  agent  for  seven-thirties,  229 ; 
agent  for  five-twenties,  345;  letter  to, 
declining  profits,  390 ;  letter  to,  432 ; 
letter  to,  503. 

Cotton,  extraordinary  advance  in  price  of, 
322 ;  evil  effects  of  speculation  in,  322 ; 
no  gold  or  silver  allowed  to  be  paid  for, 
325. 

Court,  Circuit,  Mr.  Chase  refuses  to  hold 
in  (southern  States  till  abrogation  of 
martial  law  and  restoration  of  writ  of  ha 
beas  corpus,  535,  et  seq. ;  court  at  Ealeigh, 
June,  1867,  543. 

Cowdin,  Elliott  C.,  letter  to,  363. 

Cranch,  Justice,  examines  Mr.  Chase,  30. 

Custom-house,  investigation  of,  in  New 
York,  478. 

Dartmouth  College,  Mr.  Chase  enters  and 
graduates  there,  19,  21. 

Davis,  Garret,  letter  to,  on  Kentucky  af 
fairs,  276. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  capture  of.  533 ;  the  pun 
ishment  that  might  lawfully  be  inflicted 
upon  him,  534  •  its  inadequacy,  534 ;  why 
Mr.  Chase  did  not  hold  court  in  Vir 
ginia,  535,  et  seq.;  proposed  application 
to  release  on  bail,  537;  is  pardoned, 
545. 

Demand-notes,  $50,000,000  authorized, 
221 ;  issued,  224. 

Democratic  party,  the  real,  aims  at  extinc 
tion  of  slavery,  71 ;  proposed  nomi 
nation  of  Mr.  Ohase  in  1868,  560. 

Dennison,  Mr.  Chase's  letter  to  Governor 
William,  resigning  seat  in  the  Senate, 
207. 

Depreciation  of  U.  S.  notes,  254,  255. 

Diary,  extracts  from  Mr.  Chase's:  On 
•  military  affairs  in  Virginia,  436;  the 
President  on  slavery  and  the  war,  439  ; 
urges  removal  of  General  McClellan,  440 ; 
advocates  arming  of  slaves,  441 ;  pro 
tests  against  continuing  General  McClel 
lan  in  command,  443 ;  "  Notes  on  Union 
of  the  Armies  of  the  Potomac  and  the 
Armv  of  Virginia,"  445  j  danger  to 
Washington,  452;  concerning  his  resig 
nation  from  the  Treasury,  509 ;  his  rela 
tions  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  510,  511 ;  mur 
der  of  the  President.  518. 

Dickinson,  Daniel  S.,  letter  to,  494. 

Direct  tax,  $20,000,000,  authorized,  222; 
history  of,  223. 

Dix,  John  A.,  Mr.  Chase's  letter  to,  158. 

Dodge,  Wm.  E.,  letter  to,  specie  the  basis 
of  sound  currency,  400. 


INDEX. 


665 


Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  on  the  original  Ne 
braska  Bill,  127 :  reports  Nebraska  Bill 
of  1854, 135 ;  makes  some  delicate  ques 
tions  clear  by  proposing  repeal  of  Mis 
souri  Compromise,  138;  denounces  ap 
peal  of  the  Independent  Democrats,  149. 

Drake,  Charles  D.,  at  school  at  Worthing- 
ton,  13 ;  extracts  from  remarks  of,  35  ; 
in  the  impeachment  trial  of  President 
Johnson,  554. 

Duer,  Denning,  letter  to,  505. 

Duffield,  Miss  Eliza  S.,  letter  to,  404. 

Duganne,  Colonel  A.  J.  H.,  letter  to,  592. 

Duties,  tariff,  authorized  at  the  extra  ses 
sion,  1861,  222 ;  internal,  233. 

Education,  Mr.  Chase's  letter  on,  170. 

Emancipation,  early  views  of  Mr.  Chase 
on,  276 ;  375,  376 ;  the  President's  proc 
lamation,  453;  Mr.  Chase's  letter  and 
draft  of  proclamation,  461,  463. 

Emigrant  Aid  Societies,  164. 

Estimates  for  1862,  216 ;  of  the  value  of  the 

x    nation's  real  and  personal  property,  234. 

Exchange,  foreign,  Treasury  sales  of,  361. 

Fessenden,  W.  P.,  on  legal  tender,  247: 
letter  of  Mr.  Chase  to,  on  importance  pi 
taxation,  385;  letter  to,  on  financial 
matters,  414;  the  chief-justiceship,  512. 

Field,  Associate- Justice  Stephen  J.,  letter 
to,  on  reconstruction,  526. 

Field,  M.  B.,  nominated  Assistant  Treas 
urer  at  New  York,  484. 

Finances,  disordered  condition  of.  in  1861, 
209,  211;  Mr.  Chase's  financial  objects 
summarized,  406  ;  results  of  those  meas 
ures,  410:  letter  of  Mr.  Chase  to  Colo 
nel  Van  Buren  on,  412 ;  to  Mr.  Fessen 
den,  414. 

Fiscal  operations  for  fiscal  year  1861,  214; 
to  November,  1861:  231. 

Five-twenties,  negotiation  of,  345,  et  seq.f 
splendid  success  of  that  loan,  348. 

Flanders,  Benj.  F.,  letter  to,  389. 

Fractional  currency,  341. 

Freedmen's  Bureau,  origin  of,  328. 

Fremont,  General  John  C.,  letter  to,  275; 
Mr.  Chase  on  his  proclamation  against 
slavery,  277. 

Fugitive  slave  law  of  1793,  unconstitu 
tional,  75 ;  Mr.  Chase's  earnest  opposi 
tion  to  that  of  1850, 114 ;  Mason's  bill, 
124 ;  evil  results  of,  128. 

Funding  loans,  Mr.  Chase's  objects  in  re 
spect  of,  407. 

Gaines,  Eichard,  letter  to,  580. 

Garfield,  General,  letter  to,  467 ;  General 
Garfield  to  Mr.  Schuckers,  626. 

Garner,  Margaret,  the  tragical  history  of, 
171. 

Garrison,  "William  Lloyd,  views  on  aboli 
tion,  67. 

German  method  of  making  war  contrasted 
with  the  American  method,  351,  note. 

Gibson,  Win.  H. ;  Breslin's  defalcation, 
186. 


Giddings,  J.  K.,  candidate  for  U.  S.  Senate 
in  1848,  93 ;  letter  of  Mr.  Chase  to,  99 ; 
id.,  100. 

Gillrnore,  General  Q.  A.,  letter  to,  on  mil 
itary  progress,  396. 

"  Gold  Bill;"  359. 

Gold,  premium  on,  255;  futile  efforts  to 
prevent  advance  in  price  of,  356 ;  Gov 
ernment  sales,  358;  average  premium 
on,  862;  tables  of  premium  for  four 
years,  631. 

Governor,  election  of  Mr.  Chase  to  be,  of 
Ohio,  169  ;  reelection,  188. 

Grant,  General,  letter  to,  470. 

Gray,  William,  letter  to,  433. 

Greeley,  Horace,  letters  to,  financial,  386: 

Kjrsonal,  394;   letter  to,  in  defense  or 
r.  Stanton,  452. 

Greene  County  slave-hunt,  177. 
Griswold,  George,  letter  to,  on  the  war, 

387. 

Guthrie,  James,  letter  to,  on  supplies  to 
rebels,  426. 

Habeas  corpus,  Mr.  Chase  refuses  to  hold 
court  in  rebel  States  during  suspensions 
of,  535. 

Hall,  James  C.,  letters  to,  "  the  presiden 
cy,"  497,  502. 

Halstead,  Murat,  letters  to,  281 ;  on  "  Stan- 
ton,"  398 ;  on  military  affairs,  436 ;  "  third 
party,"  582. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  on  paper  issues  by 
Government,  240,  note. 

Hamilton  County,  Ohio,  Whig  division  of, 
in  1847,  90. 

Hamilton,  John  C.,  letter  to,  278. 

Harrington,  George,  for  legal  tender,  243 
(see  also,  224,  512). 

Harrison,  Wm.  H.,  Mr.  Chase  votes  for,  in 
1836  and  1840,  39,  40 :  supposed  views 
of,  45  ;  pledge  of,  on  slavery  in  District 
of  Columbia,  46. 

Heaton,  Jacob,  letter  to,  497. 

Heckscher,  C.  A.,  letter  to,  on  tax  bill, 
384. 

Henderson,  Senator,  of  Missoun'v558. 

Hepburn  vs.  Griswold.  case  of,  258. 

Hilliardj  Henry  W.,  letter  to,  on  recon 
struction,  528. 

Hoffman,  H.  W.,  letter  to,  on  Maryland 
a  Hairs,  390. 

Hooker,  General,  letters  to,  467,  468.  471. 

Hooper,  Samuel,  introduces  national  bank 
ing  bill  into  Congress. 

Hoyt,  William  S.,  3. 

Hunt,  Randall,  letter  to,  on  the  State  of 
the  Union,  199. 

Impeachment  of  President  Johnson,  548. 
Inaugural  address,  Mr.   Chase's  second, 

189. 

Inauguration  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  207. 
Income  tax,  3  per  cent.,  July  session,  1861, 

222.  » 

Independent  Democrats,  their  action  in 

Ohio  in  1848,  90;  National  Convention 

in    1852,   131  ;    appeal   to   the    people 


666 


IXDEX. 


asrainst  repeal  of  Missouri  Compromise, 
141;  Mr.  Chase  vindicates  the  state 
ments  contained  in  the  appeal,  151. 

Interest  on  public  debt  payable  in  coin, 
opposition  to,  248. 

Internal  revenue,  314 ;  income  from  1862, 
'63,  and  '64,  316. 

Inter-State  commerce,  its  difficulties  and 
importance,  317,  et  seq. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  Mr.  Chase's  tribute  to, 
110. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  letter  to,  393 ;  sworn 
in  as  President,  519 ;  letter  to,  521 ;  the 
effort  at  impeachment  of,  548 ;  impeach 
ment  of,  549 ;  acquittal  of,  559. 

Kane,  General  Thos.  L.,  letter  to,  471. 

Kansas,  proposed  new  Territory  of,  138  ; 
passage  of  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  155 ; 
immediate  consequences  of  the  passage 
of  the  act,  160 ;  struggle  for  possession 
of  Kansas,  162. 

Kent,  Chancellor,  commends  Chase's 
"  Statutes  of  Ohio,"  35. 

Kentucky,  Mr.  Chase's  part  in  measures 
to  prevent  secession  ofT  419. 

Key,  Colonel  Thos.  M.,  letter  to  on  mili 
tary  matters,  434. 

King,  Leicester,  nominated  for  Governor 
of  Ohio,  50 ;  vote  for,  in  1842,  68. 

Kirk,  B.  C.,  letter  to,  "  the  war,"  456. 

Know-Nothings,  a  means  of  stemming  the 
anti-Nebraska  sentiment,  161 ;  their  pro 
fessed  objects,  161. 

Lauretta  Hitchcock,  letters  to,  24,  81. 

Leavitt,  Joshua;  letter  to,  expresses  pref 
erence  for  a  judicial  position,  393  ;  let 
ter  to,  on  Monroe  doctrine,  398 ;  letter 
to,  on  taxes,  400. 

Legal-tender  paper-money,  Mr.  Chase's 
hostility  to.  242 ;  letters  to  Mr.  Trow- 
bridge.  to  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens,  and  to 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  243-245 ; 
$150,000,000  authorized,  249 ;  further  is 
sues,  250 ;  summary  of  issues,  252,  253 ; 
justified  by  war  experience,  253,  et  seq. ; 
case  of  Hepburn  vs.  Griswold,  258. 

Legislature,  composition  of,  in  Ohio,  1848, 
90. 

Liberty  party,  organization  of,  in  Ohio, 
47  ;  first  convention  of,  47  ;  address  of, 
written  by  Mr.  Chase,  47 ;  proposes  a  Na 
tional  Convention  for  national  work,  50 ; 
National  Convention  of,  at  Buffalo,  in 
1843,  69 ;  John  Pierpont's  resolution  of 
"  mental  reservation,"  70 ;  Southern  and 
Western  Convention  of  1845,  70;  ad 
dress  of,  71;  National  Convention,  at 
Buffalo,  1847,  81 ;  Mr.  Chase's  call  for 
State  Convention  in  Ohio,  81. 

Lincoln,  President,  election  of,  198 ;  in 
vites  Mr.  Chase  to  conference  at  Spring 
field,  201 ;  interviews  between,  and  Mr. 
Chase,  201 ;  appoints  Mr.  Chase  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury,  207 ;  Mr.  Chase's 
letters  to,  on  financial  affairs,  388,  402, 


466;  Mr.  Chase's  letters  to,  on  pro 
visioning  of  Fort  Sumter,  423 j  —  in  re 
spect  to  Maryland  disunipmsts,  424 ; 
—  on  admission  of  West  Virginia,  459  ; 
on  emancipation,  461 ;  —  on  reconstruc 
tion,  514 ;  iais  remarks  on  emancipation, 
453 ;  accepts  Mr.  Chase's  resignation, 
486  ;  his  judgment  of  Mr.  Chase,  488  ; 
appoints  Mr.  Chase  to  be  Chief- Justice, 
488,  513  ;  letter  of  thanks  from  Mr. 
Chase  to,  513. 

Liverpool,  T.  N.  C.,  letter  to,  on  suffrage 
ana  amnesty,  531. 

Lloyd,  Demarest,  extract  from  article  of, 
33 ;  letters  to,  Cincinnati  Convention, 
593  ;  extracts  from  his  article,  "  Home- 
Life  of  Salmon  Portland  Chase,"  620, 
627. 

Loan,  national,  authorized,  218 ;  $100,000,- 
000  authorized  in  Europe,  221^  agents, 
229 ;  summary  of  acts  authorizing,  338, 
et  sea.  •  Mr.  Chase's  operations  under, 
342. 

Loans  of  1861,  227;  objections  to  long 
loans,  408. 

Long,  Colonel  Alexander,  letters  to,  on 
New  York  Convention,  578,  589. 

Ludlow,  Major  B.  C.,  letter  to,  466. 

Lyons,  James,  letter  to,  on  universal  suf 
frage  and  amnesty,  586. 

Manning,  Captain  H,  B.,  letter  to,  on  dec 
orating  Confederate  graves,  529. 

Mansfield,  E.  D.,  letter  to,  on  military 
affairs  in  Virginia,  439. 

Martial  law,  Mr.  Chase's  refusal  to  hold 
court  in  rebel  States  until  abrogation  of, 
535. 

Mason,  James  M.,  of  Virginia,  his  fugitive 
slave  bill,  123 ;  denounced  by  Demo 
crats  as  a  "bill  of  abominations,"  124: 
Mr.  Chase's  opposition  to  it,  124;  evil 
effects  of,  128. 

Matilda,  the  case  of  the  slave,  41. 

Matthews,  Stanley,  letter  to,  518. 

McClellan,  General  George  B.,  called  to 
Washington,  224 ;  cordml  letter  to,  427  ; 
letter  to,  "  the  army  and  the  Treasury 
must  stand  or  fall  together,"  433 ;  Mr. 
Chase  urges  removal  of,  from  command 
of  the  ariny?  440, 443 ;  "  Notes  on  Union 
of  the  Armies  of  the  Potomac  and  the 
Army  of  Virginia,"  445. 

McDowell,  General,  365  ;  letter  to,  on 
military  matters,  435 ;  Mr.  Chase's  let 
ter  to  Mr.  Bryant,  450. 

McMurdy,  Kev.  Dr.,  letter  to  Mr.  Schuck- 
ers,  628. 

McKim,  J.  M.,  letter  to,  525. 

Medill,  Joseph,  letter  to,  on  "  gold  notes," 
278 ;  banks,  383. 

Mellen,  William  P.,  letter  to,  on  inter- 
State  commerce,  319;  "political  meta 
physics,"  364 ;  national  banks,  386,  520. 

Mercier,  M.,  minister  of  France,  letter  to, 
on  French  decimal  system,  395. 

Military,  certain  matters,  in  charge  of,  by 
Mr.  Chase,  418  ;  partial  reorganization 
of  U.S.  Army,  419. 


IXDEX. 


667 


Militia  system  of  Ohio,  rco  'ganized  by  Mr. 
Chase,  183 ;  progress  of  reorganization, 
185 ;  publication  of  regulations,  186 ;  use 
fulness  and  efficacy  of  the  organization 
in  1861, 186. 

Miller,  Charles  R.,  letter  to,  100. 

Missouri,  Mr.  Chase's  active  interest  for 
safety  of,  419. 

Missouri  Compromise,  proposed  repeal  of, 
139  ;  appeal  of  Independent  Democrats 
against,  140 ;  history  of  Missouri  Com 
promise,  142  ;  repeal  of,  155. 

Mitchell,  General  O.  M.,  letter  to,  con- 
cerningcolored  troops,  455. 

Morgan,  IS.  D.,  the  Assistant  Treasurer's 
office,  New  York,  484. 

Morrill,  J.  S.,  against  legal  tender,  246 ; 
Morrill  tariff,  312. 

Morse.  Colonel  John  F.,  member  of  Ohio 
Legislature  in  1848.  91;  the  "Morse 
and  Townshend  coalition,"  93  ;  vindica 
tion,  by  the  people  of  Ohio,  of  the  action 
of  that  coalition,  94;  letter  to,  95 :  bill 
for  repeal  of  Ohio  black  laws,  97  ;  letter 
to,  396,  note. 

Nash,  Simeon,  letter  to,  on  Fremont's 
proclamation^  277. 

National  Banking  Associations,  proposed 
by  Mr.  Chase,  240  ;  features  of  the  sys 
tem,  296,  et  seq. ;  condition  of,  1865  and 
1873,  309,  310.  (See  BANKS  ;  see  also  p. 
406.) 

National  Convention  of  Whigs  and  Demo 
crats  in  1848,  83 ;  their  action  on  the 
slavery  question,  83,  84 ;  withdrawal  of 
New  York  "Barnburners"  from  Demo 
cratic  Convention,  83. 

National  Conventions,  Whig  and  Demo 
cratic,  in  1852,  129, 130. 

National  Convention,  Democratic,  in  1868, 
563. 

National  loan,  Mr.  Chase  proposes  one, 
218,  225. 

Nebraska,  the  original  bill,  126 ;  history 
of  the  Territory  of,  142  ;  passage  of  Kan 
sas-Nebraska  Bill,  155. 

Negroes,  Mr.  Chase  in  favor  of  arming 
freed,  420. 

Nelson,  General,  letter  to,  on  war  matters, 
429 :  letter  to,  on  miscarriage  of  arms, 
431. 

Non-intervention  with  slavery  in  the  Ter 
ritories,  Jefferson  Davis's  resolution  on, 
and  Mr.  Chase's  speech  in  opposition, 
119,  et  seq. 

Norfolk,  taking  of,  366,  et  seq. 

Notes  on  "  the  Union  of  the  Armies  of  the 
Potomac  and  the  Army  of  Virginia," 
445. 

Noyes,  William  Curtis,  letter  to,  on 
'  freedmen's  commission,"  465.  f 

Ohio,  admission  of,  into  the  Union,  61 ; 
Free-Soil  State  Convention  of  1848,  84 ; 
chooses  delegates  to  National  Conven 
tion  at  Buffalo,  84 ;  attitude  of  Demo 
crats  of,  on  slavery,  in  1848,  89;  election 


in  that  State  in  1848,  90  ;  and  the  Union, 
116;  Mr.  Chase  nominated  for  Governor 
of,  165. 

Opdyke,  Goo.,  letter  to,  on  the  war,  387. 

Ordinance  of  1787,  history  of,  58. 

Orton,  William,  letter  to,  495. 

Owen,  Robert  Dale,  his  letter  on  emanci 
pation,  379. 

Pacific  Railroad,  Mr.  Chase's  action  on, 

158. 
Palmer,  Albert  M.,  arrest  of,  478 ;  extract 

from  testimony,  502. 
Paper-money  a  necessity,  238 ;  Mr.  Chase's 

views  on,  239. 
Parsons,  Colonel  R.  C.,  letter  to,  on  Val- 

landigham's  arrest,  391 ;  letter  to,  about 

General  McDowell,  451 ;  letter  to,  623. 
Patronage  of  Treasury  Department,  481 ; 

Mr.  Seward's  method  of  disposing  of  it, 

482. 

Paul,  John,  letter  to,  156. 
Peace  Conference,  203  ;  Mr.  Chase's  prop 
osition  and  speech  in  that  body,  21)4,  et 

seq. 
Peace  and  pardon,  President  Johnson's 

proclamations  of,  536. 
Perry,  A.  F.j  letter  to,  504. 
Philanthropist,  antislavery  newspaper,  39. 
Pierce,  President,  extract  from  liis  first 

message,  134. 
Pierpont,  John,  resolutions  of,  hi  Buffalo 

Convention,  1843,  70. 
Pig,  how  Mr.  Chase  shaved  one.  14. 
Pitcher,  presentation  to  Mr.   Chase,  by 

colored  people,  78. 
Platform,  Mr.  Chase's  authorized,  in  1868, 

567. 
Plumley,  A.  R.,  teacher,  23;  gives  up  a 

school  to  Mr.  Chase,  24. 
"Pomeroy  Circular,"  476,  499. 
Pope,  General,  letter  to,  about  exacting 

oath  of  allegiance,  378. 
Potter,  M.  D.,  letter  to,  276. 
Prentice,   Geo.  D.,  letter  to,  concerning 

supplies  to  rebels,  425. 
Presidency,  proposed  for,  in  1856,  10." ;  in 

I860,    197  ;    indorsed    by   Republican 
.-State    Convention   of  Ohio,  197;    un- 
v  friendly  action  in  some  of  the  Congress 
\Kstricts,  198 ;  his  support  in  the  Chi 
cago  Convention,  198;  the  Democratic 

movement  hi  1868,  560. 
Presidential  vote  hi  1852.  132. 
Press,  Mr.  Chase  on  the  liberty  of  the,  41. 
Prices,  enhancement  of,  301  (see  also  411). 
Protest  of  New  England  clergymen  against 

the  Nebraska  BUI,  155. 
Public  debt,  1861,  statement  of,  235 ;  state 
ment  of,  1864,  355. 

Railway  celebration  of  1857, 180. 
Rebellion,  troops  necessary  to  put  it  down, 

220. 
Reconstruction,  Mr.  Chase's  letters  to  Mr. 

Lincoln.  514,  et  seq. 
Reid,  J.  M.,  letter  to,  514. 
Reid,  Whitelaw,  520 ;  extract  from  letter 

to,  619. 


INDEX. 


Republican  party,  organization  of,  in  Ohio, 
165,  note. 

Eesignation  by  Mr.  Chase  of  the  Treasury, 
486  ;  letters,  etc.,  relating  to  his  resig 
nation  and  Mr.  Seward's,  in  1862,  489. 

Besumption  of  specie  payments,  Mr.  Chase 
on,  410. 

Revenue,  internal,  233. 

*'  Ride  and  tie,"  12. 

Roberts,  John,  letter  to,  274. 

Rosecrans,  General,  letter  to,  458. 

Rousseau,  General  Lovell  H.,  letter  to, 
457. 

Schuckers,  J.  W.,  letters  to,  511,  note ; 
letters  to,  in  relation  to  trial  of  Jefferson 
Davis,  536,  540 ;  letter  to  John  S.  Cor- 
bin,  574 ;  letters  to,  in  relation  to  New 
York  Convention,  589,  590. 

Seddon,  Mrs.  L.  B.,  letter  to,  525. 

Senate.  Mr.  Chase's  election  to,  94;  re 
election  to,  194. 

"  Seven-thirties,"  first  issues  of,  227 ;  out 
standing  June  30,  1864,  342. 

Seward,  William  H.,  counsel  in  Van  Zandt 
case,  65;  letter  of,  to  Mr.  Chase,  72; 
what  Mr.  Lincoln  said  about  him  at 
Springfield,  202;  letter  of  Mr..  Chase  to, 
202,  note  ;  letter  to,  392 ;  resigns,  473 ; 
letter  to,  505. 

Seymour,  ex-Governor  Horatio,  letter  from, 
in  relation  to  Democratic  movement  for 
Mr.  Chase,  in  1868,  570. 

Sherman,  General,  letter  to,  on  war  mat 
ters,  429. 

Sherman,  John,  letter  to,  on  the  war,  379 ; 
letter  to,  520. 

Sickles,  General,  "Order  No..  10,"  543; 
abrogated  by  Executive,  543  ;  Mr.  Chase 
on,  543. 

Skinner,  Major  Ralston,  letter  to,  465. 

§lave,  Mr.  Chase's  definition  of,  62. 

Slavery,  petition  for  abolition  of,  in  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia,  27 ;  Mr.  Chase's  early 
views  on,  48 ;  its  usurpations,  49 ;  slavery 
question  in  Congress  in  1850,  105. 

Slave-hunting,  the  era  of,  128. 

Slave-trade  in  District  of  Columbia,  Mr. 
Chase's  views  on,  113. 

Smith,  Gerrit,  letter  to,  399 ;  letters  to,  on 
impeachment  and  the  presidency,  576, 
577. 

Smith,  Richard,  letter  to,  on  Government 
expenditures,  403. 

Snodgrass,  Dr.  J.  E.,  letter  to,  on  the 
presidency,  575. 

Snyder,  Miss  Mary  A.,  letter  to,  404. 

Soule",  Pierre,  letter  to,  at  Fort  Lafayette, 
376. 

Southern  and  Western  Liberty  Conven 
tion  of  1845,  70. 

South,  Mr.  Chase's  visit  to  States  of  the, 
519. 

South  Carolina,  secession  of,  199. 

Specie  payments,  suspension  of,  231 ;  Mr. 
Chase  on  resumption,  409. 

Spencer,  E.  A.,  letter  to,  on  the  presi 
dency,  495. 

Sprague,  Mrs.,  letter  to,  524. 


Sprague,  William,  letter  to,  494. 

Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  appointed  Secretary 
of  War,  237;  letter  to,  374;  letter  to, 
509;  the  chief-justiceship,  512;  im 
peachment  business,  548. 

State  banks,  inadequacy  and  dangers  of 
their  circulation.  284. 

Stebbms,  Mrs.  Alice  S.,  letter  to,  623. 

Stevens,  Thaddeus,  on  legal  tender,  246 ; 
letter  to,  in  favor  of  tax  on  State  bank 
notes,  401. 

Stewart,  John  A.,  letter  to,  505. 

Stickney,  L.  D.,  letter  to,  503. 

Stocks,  U.  S.,  $25,000,000  authorized,  210 
(see  also  212,  818). 

Story,  Associate-Justice  J.,  on  "  Chase's 
Statutes,"  36. 

Suffrage,  Mr.  Chase's  views  on,  in  1845, 
79. 

Summary  of  Mr.  Chase's  financial  meas 
ures  and  objects,  406. 

Sumner,  Charles,  his  advent  into  the 
Senate,  126;  on  legal  tender,  247;  the 
chief-justiceship,  512  ;  letter  to,  from 
the  South,  523. 

Supreme  Court  on  legal  tender,  258 ;  re 
construction  of,  265. 

Suspension  of  specie  payments,  231. 

Sutnffe,  Milton,  letter  to,  275. 

Tappan,  Lewis,  letter  to,  65. 

Tariff,  increased  duties  proposed  on  mo 
lasses,  etc.,  217;  the  "Morrill,"  312; 
legislation  during  Mr.  Chase's  admin 
istration,  813 ;  income  from,  314. 

Taxation,  Mr.  Chase's  views  on,  330  (see 
also  note,  same  page). 

Taxes,  direct,  $20,000,000  proposed,  217 ; 
amount  raised,  from  all  sources,  during 
Mr.  Chase's  administration,  336. 

Ten-forties,  349,  350. 

Tennessee,  Mr.  Chase  in  charge  of  mili 
tary  matters  in,  419. 

Texas,  annexation  of,  81 ;  boundary  ques 
tion,  122. 

Thomas,  Colonel  Wm.  B.,  letter  to,  574. 

Tilton,  Theodore,  letter  to,  "A  folded 
banner,"  579. 

Tod,  Governor  David,  of  Ohio,  letter  to, 
471. 

Townsend's  National  JRecord,  extracts 
from,  225. 

Townshend,  Dr.  Norton  S.,  91. 

Treasury,  Mr.  Chase  nominated  to  be 
Secretary  of  the,  207;  daily  expendi- 


352. 

Trent-  affair,  236. 

Trowbridge,  Mr.  John  T.,  "Ferry-Boy 
tod  Financier,"  11 ;  letters,  4,  5,  7,  11, 
13,  16,  18,  19,  29,  41,  50,  130,  418. 

Troy,  J.  T.,  letter  to,  on  amnesty  and  suf 
frage,  531. 

United  States  notes,  Mr.  Chase's  aversion 
to,  239,  242. 


INDEX. 


669 


Universal  suffrage,  necessity  of,  to  the 
Republican  party,  546. 

Van  Buren,  Colonel  John  D.,  letters  to,  on 
finance,  412 ;  on  New  York  Convention 
matters,  589,  590. 

Van  Zandt,  John,  the  case  of,  53;  Mr. 
Chase's  argument,  56 ;  end  of,  65. 

Vermont  resolutions  on  slavery,  108,  note. 

War,  troops  necessary  for  the,  220 ;  vast 
expenditures  for,  238 ;  letter  to  Secretary 
of,  426. 

Warden,  R.  B.,  letters  to,  279,  394. 

Washington  Union,  against  repeal  of 
Missouri  Compromise,  137;  for  repeal, 
139. 

Watson,  Samuel,  case  of,  74. 

Webster,  Daniel,  on  the  slavery  question 
in  1850,  105. 

Weiss,  John,  letter  to,  392. 

Welles,  Hon.  Gideon,  extract  from  "  Lin 
coln  and  Seward,"  482. 

Whig  party,  dissolution  of,  161. 


Whipple,  Miss  Eliza  Chaso,  letter  to  Mr. 

Schuckers,  629. 

Whipple,  George,  letter  to,  525. 
Williams,  John  E.,  letter  to,  on  "  deco 
rating  Confederate  graves,"  530. 
Wilson,  Henry,  letter  to,  434. 
Wirt,    Catharine    and    Elizabeth,    "The 

Sisters,"  25. 
Wirt,  William,  Mr.  Chase  enters  his  office, 

26 ;  letter  to,  28  (see  also  38,  and  note). 
Wirt,  Dr.  William,  letter  to,  421. 
Wise,  Henry  A.,  Governor,  threatens  to 

invade  Ohio,  191 ;  Governor  Chase's  re- 

plv,  192. 

Wood,  Bradford  R.,  letter  to,  365. 
Wooster,  how  the  town  looked  at  night, 

12. 
Worthington,  school  at,  13. 

Young,  John,  letter  to,  on  military  man 
agement,  458. 

Zinn,  Peter,  letter  to,  363. 


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